


Broodmother

by BoyMother



Series: Broodmother [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Amputation, Blood and Gore, Bugs & Insects, Cannibalism, Dark, Fucked Up Shit, Horror, Human/Monster Romance, Hybrids, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, M/M, Male Pregnancy, Male Protagonist, Maternal Instinct, Monster/Human Romance, Oviposition, Post-Apocalypse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Romance, Size Difference, Teratophilia, boy mother, centipedes, femboy, soft boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:26:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24819883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoyMother/pseuds/BoyMother
Summary: A young man finds himself alone in the aftermath of the apocalypse. A desert wasteland filled with ferocious hunters in which a strange new life is thrust upon him. In the red dirt desert horror, centipedes, and motherhood await.This story will eventually involve some gore (amputation), non-con, male pregnancy, oviposition, and giant arthropods.I stress very much that is not for the faint of heart.That being said, I hope you enjoy!
Series: Broodmother [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795264
Comments: 84
Kudos: 388





	1. Awoken

Coming out of long-term, tech-sustained hibernation can be quite a terrifying experience. In the old days, before the war when the technology was still being developed, testers would say coming out of the sleep was like pulling your conscious self together, piece by piece, always afraid you might lose your grip and dissolve back into the vast empty embrace of sleep. Others though, simply woke up stiff and sore and nauseous. Myrio was granted the good fortune of waking relatively without issue, only pained by the aching of his bones and the throbbing of his head. It was the last good fortune he would have for a while. 

As soon as his vision returned to him and he was able to think coherent thoughts, he knew something was wrong. The pod he was in was damaged. A large metal rebar had smashed halfway through the length of the machine, missing Myrio’s body by only several inches. This had broken the pod, ending Myrio’s hibernation and releasing the seal on the door of the container.  
Myrio, once he had gathered himself together enough to command his frail withered arms to work, pushed on the door to free himself. It took significant effort, the lead in the door’s construction was not light, and Myrio had never been strong before. He felt even weaker now, like a corpse whose muscles had long rotted away. Getting the door open enough to exit the chamber was an ordeal. He was gasping for breath, clinging to the exterior of the pod for support.

Confusion, fear, and panic began to take hold of him as he observed his surroundings. He had just re-entered the land of the living and it was ominously devoid of life.  
The bunker was decrepit, filled with sand and rust. The ceiling had been damaged, sunlight shown through jagged holes here and there, metal rebar hung loosely in various places, threatening to fall at any moment. There was little in the room besides a couple dozen other pods, most open and empty, some crushed by the collapsing building. None appeared to contain life. Myrio was alone. A whimper escaped his lips as his brain, still pulling together distant memories, struggled to comprehend his situation.  
He remembered being chosen for this pod. A medical test… he had passed, something about his impressive durability. They’d chosen him for the program... then he'd started living in the compound. He had been prepared for hibernation. He’d been told he would awake to a peaceful new world. He would sleep and the problems of the world would work themselves out. Looking around the desolate bunker now, he feared they had done just that, though not in the way anyone would have hoped. 

His legs gained just a bit more strength and he was able to take his first shaky steps outside of the bunker in centuries. His bare feet met the hard cracked dirt of the earth outside and the sun beat down on his pale body. It burned. He gasped at the intensity of it, almost believing he’d suddenly combusted. But the heat, though powerful, was not deadly. He adjusted slowly to the dry air and scorching rays, forcing his legs to take steps across the vast red dirt desert, in which he could see no end on the horizon. He did not know where he was going or why he was even leaving at all. It was a dumb impulsive reaction to finding himself in an unfamiliar place, like a child who wanders aimlessly in search of the parent they’ve been separated from. Perhaps somewhere there was someone who could explain this. He just had to find them.  
But as the bunker became nothing more than a metallic gleam in the distance behind him, his conscious brain fully returned to life and reality set in. 

It was not difficult to figure out. The world was dead. The war had never meant to go this far. He was one of those put away in hibernation to await the end of the war and inherit a new world in its wake. But there was no new world, just the dry bones of the old. Myrio’s misfortune was that he had not died peacefully in his pod, but survived just long enough to reenter this hellish landscape. He stopped walking now, his naked body covered in red dust, standing alone in an endless plain. The only things around for miles that he could make out were waist high shrubs of some kind. Nothing to indicate civilization. Fully awake now, Myrio uttered his first words in centuries, “No, God please. Please…”  
It was a prayer that he might wake up from this and find himself among others once again. “Please!” he cried out, voice ringing out in stale desert air, yielding no reply. “Please… I don’t want be here. What am I supposed to do?” He whimpered, jaw clenching and hands shaking. He knew he was crying, but his tears had dried up decades earlier.  
“Oh God… I’m going to die here. I have to die here.” Death was inevitable. What else was there to do? But the pod had cruelly left the task for him. He collapsed into the earth, pulling his knees to his chest and heaving as non-existent tears rolled down his face. He tried to return to sleep, but his panicked mind was only becoming more alert as the effects of hibernation melted away.  
All he could do was lay still and moan pathetically, defeated and alone. Like a prey animal injured in the den of the beast. 

It was only a matter of time until the predators came along. Though Myrio did not know it, he was not alone. In fact, company was on its way to him right at that moment. Gliding across the red dessert on its many legs, towards the scent of a warm body.


	2. Buried

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myrio’s time in this new world may be short-lived. Will he escape the many claws of the beast?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains Violence

By the time Myrio heard the rapid stabbing taps of its many legs, it was too late. Escape was not an option. The thing had smelled him from nearly a mile away, fresh meat, exhausted and alone. Having found easy prey, the hunt began. It glided across the desert ground at a speed comparable to a galloping horse. Yet despite it’s furious pace, it was near undetectable from a distance. It’s dull maroon armour blended perfectly with the dirt and it’s flat shape prevented any figure against the horizon that might give it away. One could only detect its kind if one knew what to look for. A glint of light, a dust cloud rising up where it shouldn’t be, these things might be the last warnings vigilant prey would get, and they were easily missed. The apex predators of the red dirt desert, hunting machines designed near perfectly for their environment. Myrio never stood a chance, of course.   
The thing was only feet away from Myrio’s turned back when the boy suddenly realized he was not alone. Then it was upon him. Icy paralyzing fear seized his muscles for a moment, giving way to a fit of adrenaline driven convulsions. He kicked and punched at the heavy body overtaking him. It was long. So so long. It’s body just kept producing more and more coils to throw around the struggling human. It couldn’t have been any shorter than 14 feet, and just a bit wider than it’s selected prey. It was heavy, it’s plated body pinning Myrio to the ground. The boy was so frail that coils were hardly necessary to keep him in place, but the creature did not relent as legs, torso, and even head were wrapped tightly it’s embrace. Myrio’s fists bounced uselessly off the creature’s underside before his arms were pinned tightly against his sides. He could barely breath for the tight squeezing restriction of his chest.   
A hundred knife-like appendages accompanied this heavy body, jabbing their sharp tips into Myrios’s immobilized form. The struggle was exhausting and fierce but lasted mere seconds. Then all was still again. Prey bound up tight, making another successful hunt. 

The creature calmed after successfully subduing its target, but Myrio did not. He was still locked in a blind panic, coherent though buried under fear and panic. He continued to weakly grunt and push against the restraining coils, but it was so strong he might as well have been trying to bend steel. And as venom flowed into him from the thing’s pointed legs, even his weak movements ceased. He was simply too exhausted to do anything other than pant, his wide eyes staring like a caught rabbit.   
He stared into the chitinous alien mouth of the thing and realized what it was. The long body, the many knife like legs, its long waving antennas, it was all characteristic of a creature even Myrio knew, but had never seen at this scale: A centipede.   
He had been hunted and caught by a centipede. A giant fucking centipede. Longer than a car, thicker than a human body. Once his struggling had ceased completely, the head of the monster turned back towards him. It’s antennae tapped on Myrio’s face, exploring its fresh caught prey. Its mouth was a small opening surrounded by tiny intersecting knives, which made rapid clicking noise as the mouth-part clashed with each other. The horrific thing took its time, adjusting it’s position to allow its antennae to brush over all parts of Myrio’s naked body. Paralyzed by venom and exhaustion, Myrio could do little but thrash his head and wail. He could not even think, his brain caught in fearful animalistic fervor. Instinct was all that was left as he awaited the grisly fate of being eaten alive by an overgrown insect. Such was his introduction to the new era. His fate in it would surely be like the demise of the old world: sudden, bloody, and brief. 

Except... the centipede continued to investigate his body, antennae sweeping over every inch as, curious clicking at every new fleshy bit it discovered. It remained like this, playing with its food, long enough for the animal terror to seep back away in Myrio’s brain. His weak straining ceased completely and he lay still, wide terrified eyes fixed on the creature’s head. His mind racing to produce any way out of this.   
The centipede was not familiar with prey like this, and its curiosity took priority over its hunger. It was a soft naked thing, like a baby. It would no doubt be a tasty morsel...but perhaps it could be more useful than just a small meal. What drew so much attention was the prey’s warmth. It’s body was warm like a sun-baked rock. It felt pleasant against its cold plated underbelly. A curious quality that in other seasons would have been nothing more than a simple observation before a meal. But at the current moment, it was a great fortune. The centipede clicked loudly, signalling its pleasure, and once again began to glide across the desert. 

Myrio remained held in coils while the rest of its body ran, carrying him with it towards some unknown destination. There was nothing he could do but endure the discomfort of being carried so roughly. He prayed to no god in particular that this was all a bad dream and he would wake up soon. But the nightmare was real and he was captive to watch it play out. 

Myrio’s body was rubbed raw and red from being jostled in a cage of knives for so long. The centipede ran for quite a while, he couldn’t keep track of the time, but it was clear that they had traveled a great distance. Every now and then Myrio caught glances of a mountain range on the horizon. It was the only landmark he could use to orient himself in this hellish flatland. They seemed to be traveling in the direction of the mountains but were still a long way off. 

And then, all of a sudden, darkness. Myrio was plunged into darkness as his centipede captor dived down into a hole in the ground he had not seen coming. It was a total change in environment. In an instant, he was taken from the sun-scorched plain into a dark and cramped burrow. There was no light at all as they descended deeper into the hole. Myrio was left completely blinded. He was bumped against the walls of the hole and could tell that they were only just wide enough for the centipede to slip through. The smell of earth clogged his lungs and he could not stave off the fear of being buried alive.  
Finally motion stopped. The centipede had brought him to the bottom of a deep hole in the desert, where the narrow entrance tunnel opened up into a slightly less cramped den. Immediately upon arrival, Myrio was released from the claws of the beast to be dropped in the dirt. His muscles were still stiff with venom, but he did his best to awkwardly scramble to his feet, taking a defensive posture. He was blind, weak, and exhausted. His body ached to lay down and sleep but his mind relied on his last reserves of adrenaline to cling to survival. Not that there was actually any way out of this. He could not even see the beast inches in front of him, let alone fight it or escape. His clenched fists lashed out as soon as he felt those antennae brush him. They landed squarely against hard armor plates and shockwaves of pain shook Myrio’s joints. It was like punching solid stone. He was bowled over in the next movement by the centipede’s bulk, it’s weight pushing him onto his back, cornering him against the back wall of the den. 

Naked, bloodied, and barely conscious, Myrio lay prone. His exhausted arms and legs splayed out at his side, his chest vulnerable and exposed. The only protection left for his rapidly beating heart was a frail and tiny ribcage. He could only hope he would lose consciousness before the pain of being torn apart by vicious clicking jaws began.   
But the centipede did not have hunger on its mind as it surrounded it’s helpless prey. Instead it was intent to go about satiating mother nature’s other great need.


	3. Filled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myrio is not eaten, but endures a very different fate. (Not for the faint of heart!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains Non-consensual sex, violence, and very dark themes.

The centipedes had a long history on this earth. They had been around 400 million years since before Myrio’s people, and as Myrio had now learned, they’d lasted long after them too. They began their history as giants and now, after a brief period of domination by the mammals, had returned to enormity. The mammals could not last in the harsh desert left behind by the last of civilization. It was hot, dry, and harshly irradiated. The radiation had subsided now, but the mammals were mostly gone from the desert, present only in the forms of small cowering rodents. To the centipede’s this was just and good. It was only the natural order of things for them to be positioned on top of the food chain, the apex predators of the red dirt desert, perfectly adapted to thrive (at least as much as any species could thrive in such a place). Their flat speedy forms allowed them to stealthily hunt in the vast open desert. Their intelligence had improved beyond anything their arthropod siblings had ever achieved before, turning them from unthinking crawling things into clever predators that could hunt even intelligent prey. They possessed bulk, strength, and venom which allowed them to be challenged by none but others of their own kind. Interspecies hunting was not uncommon. Young centipedes learned to fear their elders, but once one had achieved maturity, they were indomitable, solitary masters of their world. The only time centipedes met with each other under peaceful circumstances was for breeding, and even this was a brief event, with the threat of cannibalism looming over whichever partner was smaller.   
Myrio found himself now in the den of one of these apex predators. An older adult who had fertilized its eggs not too long ago. It now sought out a suitable place to lay them. The eggs would not survive in its own body for too long. As they grew larger, they would be crushed in its hard, inflexible, active body. The eggs needed warmth and stillness to develop, neither of which a centipede body could provide. The solution relied upon by younger individuals was to bury the eggs, not so deep that they would be separated from the warmth of the sun and die, but not so shallow it could be easily found and cannablized. It was a risky process and egg mortality was high. Older and larger individuals could afford to hunt larger prey and stuff the corpse with eggs before burying it. This would provide some insulation for the eggs and of course, would be a meal for the young after they hatched. This offered slightly more security, but still many eggs were lost even with this aid.  
The pain of a perished clutch was not lost on the centipedes and they fought hard for the survival of their young. The centipede that had captured Myrio had been thinking on this dilemma as its eggs approached laying size. And now, this strange whimpering thing he’d found wandering alone like a lost cub might be the solution. It was soft and warm, softer and warmer than any other prey native to the desert. The perfect temperature for his eggs. The centipede was smart enough to figure that if he killed the pathetic thing, the warmth would leave its body relatively quickly and render it useless for little more than a snack, so it kept the body alive. An ingenious plan had hatched in its mind. A way to keep its eggs deep in its cool burrow, close enough to itself to be monitored and protected. And it all hinged on this noisy shivering mammal. 

Myrio had been certain he was going to be eaten until the beast thrust it’s mid-section against his body. He had no idea what it was trying to do as he was pressed into the dirt by it’s heavy bulk. Perhaps it was trying to crush him to death? Though that seemed unnecessary giving the centipede’s many more efficient killing tools. The clumsy shoves of the centipede gradually became more methodical as it found it’s positioning, becoming a purposeful undulating motion against the boy’s torso. It forced him onto his back and spread his legs apart, wider than they wanted to stretch, causing his inner thighs to burn. His pelvis was slowly being pushed up, while his head was forced back and down. It was not a comfortable position but Myrio’s body was still flush with venom, not that he would have been able to resist otherwise. He remained absolutely perplexed by this behavior, unable to understand what this thing intended to do with him. But then, after pressing him into the right position and working itself up enough, its intentions became clear. Now flat on his back with his legs spread and pelvis raised, Myrio’s butt was fully exposed and pressed up against the creature’s underside. He felt something soft and wet press against his anus.   
“You’re gonna fuck me!?” Myrio screamed, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. He fought with his uncooperative muscles to move, but could barely lift an arm. The centipede lurched forward and he felt his anus slightly pushed apart.   
“What the hell! Stop!” He screamed, dumb reflexive reactions to a creature that surely could neither understand nor care. Another thrust from the creature and its ovipositor entered him. It only reached a few inches in, but it sent shockwaves of pain up Myrio’s spine. The venom, while dulling his motor abilities, did nothing to mitigate the pain. Through focused willpower, Myrio was able to slowly raise an arm, clench his fist, and swing it into the Centipede’s underside. It smacked dully against the armor and fell back into the dirt. It did not even register to the beast, who was now driven by a powerful instinct to lay its eggs. The ovipositor reached several inches further up into the intestines, shifting organs around to make room for itself. Myrio experienced not only pain, but the intense discomfort of his abdomen feeling overfull. Little did he know just how much fuller it would become. He grit his teeth, feeling hot tears begin to roll down his cheeks. He did not understand why this was happening to him. He had woken up to the long-dead corpse of his world, an anachronism in a lonely world with no one to comfort him. He could have been crushed under metal in his pod, he could have died in his sleep, he could have fainted in the heat and never gotten back up. But he hadn’t. The cruel universe had kept him alive long enough to be raped by a crawling abomination like this. He could resist no more. He resigned himself to whimper and cry while the thing did its deed.  
The ovipositor had completely penetrated him now, reaching deep into his belly. Just as he had started to become used to the pain of penetration, another sharp shock of pain tore through his lower body. He felt the strange muscle inside him twist and stretch with no regard for the limits of his innards. His mouth opened but no sound came out, just a strained expression of pain and horror as the ovipositor widened. Some ingenious biological mechanism allowing it to go from a soft fleshy appendage like an octopus tentacle, to hard and stiff as centipede armor. Myrio felt this stiff tube shoved inside him and he prayed it would not tear anything, or if it did, that it would be a quick death. His hopes were destroyed as the expansion continued and the focus of pain traveled from his inner abdomen to his anus, stretching him far further than he was supposed to go. But the centipede did not care for its prey. It thought of Myrio the same way Myrio thought of it: a dumb, unthinking animal operating only on instinct. Therefore it did not mind the boy’s pain as he set about completing the task.   
Once it had reached deep enough into the body to deposit its eggs where they would stay put, the more pleasurable process of laying began. Not for the living egg sack, but for the layer of course. Its innards shifted as eggs began to be pushed forward. Small for now, only about walnut sized but they would grow a great deal before hatching. One by one they slid through its shaft and were deposited into the human. Myrio felt the little object filling him. After each egg he would think “that’s it. I’m full. I couldn’t possibly hold another,” and yet, each time another followed. He tried to count the number but quickly lost track, distracted by the absurd horror of the situation. He’s seen this in a movie once, a human used as a living egg sack.   
“Why me!?” He screamed, barely managing not to choke on his own saliva, “Why why why why?” His cries descended into sobs as he attempted to reason with some unknown god. But in this alien world, at least for Myrio, this multi-legged abomination WAS god. And it was an uncaring god, only responding to his cries with a pleasured hissing as the last of its eggs slipped inside. 

Then it began to pull out. Its ovipositor softening, shrinking, and receding into its body. Myrio ceased to feel the sharp tearing pains and only the immense aching in his anus, intestines, and legs was left. He stole a glance at his abdomen and saw that it was bloated slightly, distended and ugly. He averted his eyes.   
It was over. Nothing left to do but sob into the dirt. But even now the beast would not let him have peace. Once the creature’s afterglow had subsided, it began to dig, its shovel like front claws flinging dirt back at a furious rate. It took mere seconds to burrow out a small hole in the back of its den, just large enough to fit Myrio’s curled body. It then grabbed Myrio and dragged him over, placing him in the hole. Myrio did not resist.   
He lay surrounded on three sides by endless walls of dirt, and on the front by the coiled body of a giant bug. His body ached and burned, his belly was unbearably full, and he was broken. Sobbing into the dirt, though the tears had long since stopped flowing. 

It had taken less than a day for Myrio to go from blissful ignorant sleep to whatever hell this was. Perhaps, if there was a god that felt pity watching him, he would be allowed to die there. To fade away and cease the pain. To let the eggs rot in his quickly cooling corpse. To leave this wretched plain forever. But that was not his fate. Myrio had only begun on a journey stranger than he had ever imagined. And so he did not die, but slept.


	4. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myrio gets his chance for escape. But where will he go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning that this chapter gets pretty depressing.

When he woke Myrio’s head ached. His immediate attempts to move his body were hindered by a stabbing soreness throughout his muscles and the fact that he was still stuck in a hole barely large enough for him to curl up in. His hands felt around the confines of his nest to locate the opening, he was still in total darkness after all. They found the opening and Myrio breathed a sigh of relief that he had not been buried. He reached out of his little hideaway hole and his fingers made contact with the hard outter shell of the Den’s inhabitant. It was just barely warmer than the surrounding dirt. Otherwise it had no lifelike qualities. No softness, no motion. He recoiled immediately, but there was no response to his touch. The beast seemed to be asleep, or at least inactive. It’s bulky coiled body took up most of the space in the main den chamber and blocked the opening to Myrio’s little nest. He was stuck in place for now.  
At the very least, he was granted an opportunity to think for the first time since he’d awoken in this new world. Despite his aching body, the dirt was not uncomfortable and the den was pleasantly cool. He took the time to lay, eyes wide open but seeing nothing, and thought over his situation. For now, he concerned himself with the centipede. It had not yet eaten him, but that could change at any time. If he was going to escape that grisly fate, he needed to do it soon. The den was deep, but not so deep he couldn’t climb out of it, even in his current state. The centipede had to leave sometime, right? Though he realized he didn’t actually know that. It could be days or weeks before the thing awoke, maybe years! How could he be certain about anything with such an alien creature? He racked his brain for any information he might have learned about centipedes as a child but found nothing. They had always just been curious little creepy crawlies in the dirt of the playground. He had watched them as a child but knew little about their biology. Besides, who knew if that knowledge would even carry over to a goliath like this. His anxiety mounted and he made an attempt to quell it. If this thing did decide to eat him or starve him or bury him… there was nothing he could do. His only option was to wait and seize any opportunity presented to him.  
He placed his hands on his belly and gasped in horror as they felt its shape. It bulged outward, tightly filled with eggs. In the heat of all that had happened, Myrio had not fully realized what had been done to him. Now though, he had no delusions about what was in him. That thing had laid eggs in him. His breathing quickened as he was overwhelmed with nightmarish visions of what this meant for him. Would the eggs hatch and eat him from the inside out? Would they burst out of his stomach like a horror film? He began to press down on his stomach in an attempt to push them out, but his bulging belly stayed firm, filled with a thick fluid to keep things in place. The eggs would not budge.  
His panic was interrupted by the stirring of the beast beside him. He froze, terrified that he might have woken the thing. Was it angry at him for trying to expel the eggs? He stayed completely still, eyes staring helplessly into the darkness, listening to chitin scrape and shift, the sound of a multitude of legs stabbing into the dirt. The sounds began to grow distant and Myrio realized the centipede was climbing up and out of the burrow. It was leaving!  
He remained still for several minutes after that. He could hear no sign of the beast but was still hesitant to move. What if it was waiting for him just outside the burrow? What if it was a cruel trap? He remained paralyzed with fear for another few minutes and still heard no sound. Realizing that this was perhaps the only opportunity to escape he had, he forced himself to move. It was painful and laborious to even pull himself out of his little hole, but now that he had started, he had to move fast. The horrible thing could return any moment. He moved his arms and legs deliberatively, clenching his teeth through the pain. The eggs inside him were bearable laying still, but moving emphasized just how unnatural it was to have all those things stuck up in his intestines. Still he pushed on, determined to get out. His thoughts faded away and he became singularly focused on his goal. Left arm, right leg, commanding his limbs to drag him up further towards the entrance. His crawl was slow but he did not stop. Every ounce of strength left in him drove him towards the light at the end of the tunnel (in this case literally.) He could feel the movement of air from above and see the dim glow of the opening. He was a scrawny boy with no strength to speak of, but he had the particular mental and physical qualities that enabled him to endure just about anything. It was why he was selected as one of the candidates to jettison towards the future in one last desperate hope for survival. Their plan for humanity had failed, but Myrio had still ended up here in the new world. Perhaps he would survive, even now.

He felt the faintest glimmer of hope as he pulled his ailing body into the moonlight above. It was night now. He had no way of knowing how long he’d slept but it felt like it’d been a while. He wanted to sleep again. He let his body rest, laying beside the den entrance for a mere moment and already was tempted to shut his eyes and return to blissful sleep. But he couldn’t. He had to keep moving. Now that he was out of the den, he could stand. His legs shook violently at first, threatening to topple him, but he pushed through the first few steps and found his balance, gaining speed as he pressed on. He looked down at his pregnant belly, sticking out and adding an unfamiliar weight to his front. Terrible images of young centipedes eating their way towards his heart filled his mind. He tried to calm himself. All he needed to do way get a safe distance away, find somewhere to hide, and he could then find a way to get the eggs out. 

And then what? 

The question occurred to him like a wrecking ball occurs to a brick wall. He looked up from the ground in front of him to the horizon. A vast plain bathed in moonlight, sparse spindly trees, the lonely edifice of some mountains, and little else. There were no cities, no roads, no other people. He couldn’t even see animal life. He was utterly alone. He had been so focused on the immediate danger of the centipede that he’d forgotten about the real reason he had to despair. He was alone, for all he knew the last human alive, in a cold uncaring unfamiliar world. There was no one waiting for him, there was no one to console him, no one even to acknowledge his existence. The realization broke him. He clutched his full stomach, tears forming in his eyes as he began to whip his head around, scanning the desert in all directions for anything! Anything to give him any hope that he wasn’t alone here.  
“Please,” he croaked, the sound of the word strained and feeble. The plea of a dying animal to an uncaring god.  
He fell to his knees and wept. He had cried of shock when he first awoke, of pain in the den of the centipede. But now he wept more sorrowfully than ever. He cried tears of loneliness. He howled and wailed into the night. His fingers clawed at his thighs and the dirt. His drool ran down his chin and his body convulsed. He wanted to be held and comforted. He wanted to hear kind words… or any words. But he would have none of those things ever again. He did not remember many people from before the hibernation. He’d led a lonely life, even then. But now, in this moment of despair, he remembered his mother. The image of her with soft brown hair and large gentle eyes exactly like his own. He wailed for her, longing for her touch and her warmth. But she was gone forever.  
“I love you I love you I love you I love you,” he said feverishly, praying to some memory of her, as if it might summon her to him.  
He wept until he could weep no longer and then he fell into the dirt. He had made it about 100 yards from the den.

Time passed before he saw the movement in the distance. The centipede with its upper body raised, hurtling towards him at maximum speed. He stared at it, watching it approach until its furious hissing and clicking could be heard. He did not move. He had nowhere to go.


	5. Discovered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myrio waits to die but is interrupted by a shocking discovery. In a moment, everything changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for suicidal ideation.

Myrio had been retrieved and promptly returned to his little hole by the centipede only minutes after escaping the den. Venom was not needed this time. He did not fight back and allowed his limp body to be carried back underground.  
Two days had passed since he had awoken in his pod. He had awoken in a flurry of instinct, running on a fight or flight response through day and night. But now he was out of fuel. He could not fight for survival anymore. What point was there to surviving? There was nothing for him in this desolate world. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do but exist and contemplate his tragic fate. Death seemed like the inevitable outcome of this situation, but he could not think of any way to end his life contained like he was. Even if he could think of a method, he had no energy to carry it out. All that was left was to lay and wait to die. In the meantime he tried to sleep as much as he could. His experience over the following day was a strange one. He faded in and out of consciousness, every time waking to the ache of his withering egg-stuffed body. When he was conscious, he was left alone with his thoughts without even a sense of sight in the pitch black den to distract him. Feverish thoughts crowded his mind. He thought of the old world and how it might have ended. He thought of the destroyed and empty pods he’d left behind. He thought of his mother and childhood friends. He tried to imagine their faces and was disturbed when he could not recall certain features. He thought of the moon and the sun and the stars, drifting overhead as they had done for billions of years. For them, the birth and death of his human race had passed by in the blink of an eye. It was almost comforting to think about his situation from the perspective of the great celestial bodies. To them he was nothing more than a microscopic creature whose life and death meant nothing at all. The images of saturn and neptune faded in and out of view, first at the corners of vision, then gradually overtaking the darkness. Swirling and warping in the darkness of above him. The moon became a human face and then melted into a pool of water, out of the pool emerged the billowing flames of a mushroom cloud and born from it was an infestation of centipedes, crawling across all corners of the darkness. 

The only thing that brought him back to reality from his drifting hallucinations was the coming and going of the den’s chief inhabitant. The centipede left the den frequently. Sometimes for mere minutes, sometimes for hours. It always returned hissing and clicking to itself. It would lay dormant for a bit more before again leaving. Myrio wondered if it was hunting, but it never seemed to return with prey. It did however eventually return with something eventually. Myrio was alerted to the sound of it returning through the entrance tunnel, followed by several dull thuds in the dirt as it dropped some unknown objects. Myrio thought it had returned with the body of some unlucky creature, until several basketball shaped objects were pushed into his little chamber. One of them rolled onto his belly, disturbing the eggs within him and plunging a stab of pain into his spine. He wheezed and grabbed the thing, feeling it’s bumpy hard exterior. He had no idea what the objects were until he heard a hollow splitting sound from the centipede. It reminded him of a watermelon being cut open. Perhaps these were fruit of some kind? The centipede began to slurp and suck at the thing, and Myrio figured it must be food. He assumed the centipede would consume them all and so he set the strange plants outside his hole and tried to return to sleep. However, minutes later, the fruit was rolled back in. He picked up the pair and set them back outside again and again they were rolled back to him. The centipede even pierced a hole into one before sending it back to him. Curiosity got the best of him and Myrio stuck his fingers into the hole. He felt wet pulp and then in the center he felt the sloshing coolness of liquid. Immediately, his mouth felt unbearably dry. He knew that drinking would only prolong the release of death, but there was no fighting his body’s incredible urge to quench itself. Reflexively, he brought fruit to his mouth and drank. The liquid inside was in fact water. It was sweeter than anything he’d ever tasted. He hungrily gulped it down, gargled moans escaped him as it poured down his throat, dripping out of the corners of his lips and onto his chest. He did not remove the fruit from his mouth until it was emptied. He whimpered and reached for the other, his fingers struggling to pierce the thick flesh. He managed to rip out a chunk and drank again, filling his belly with trembling hands. When he was finished, he bit into the flesh as he heard the centipede doing and found that it was edible. It was hard and bland with a flavor like celery crossed with raw potato, but at a time like this, it tasted amazing. The simple carnal pleasure of eating filled him as he crushed the pulp between his teeth.   
He ate voraciously, moaning impulsively as he did, completely focused on the food in his hands. He continued like this until a burst of hissing and clicks interrupted him. They sounded closer than usual, right outside his little hole actually. And then he realized, it was watching him. He could feel its gaze on him and knew it was watching him eat. For a moment, he almost felt gratitude to the thing for bringing him sustenance. But of course, he was just an egg sack that needed occasional feeding. Still though, the behavior of the centipede was… strangely intelligent? How could a dumb bug know to bring these to him? That he would need water and food to survive? He tried to focus again on the last few pieces of shell he had to eat, but the question of the centipede’s behavior stuck in his mind.   
It continued to watch him eat. He could hear its strange noises a mere foot or so from himself. He had no choice but to listen to the creature. As he did, he noticed something that made his heart beat fast and his mind race. He couldn’t be sure, but the centipede’s hisses and clicks seemed to occur...in a pattern. It was not the random noises of animal, but seemed to follow a pattern and cadence characteristic of… language? It was an idea he could not believe, but he was forced to consider it now. Could this beastly alien thing be sentient? There was no way. He was imagining things in his delirious state. He told himself it couldn’t possibly be true. But the more he listened, the more the pattern stood out. He even isolated a few phrases, short strings of hisses and clicks that were repeated several times. He could not ignore it any longer. It became an unbearable question in his mind: was he holed up with an unthinking predator? Or could it possibly be an intelligent thinking being?

It was an impulse that he tried it, an experiment he hardly expected to yield results. He repeated a phrase he thought he’d heard the centipede say. A low hiss followed by two rapid clicks. He replicated the sounds as best he could by sucking through his teeth and clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. As soon as he made the noise the centipede fell silent. There was a very long moment full of tension as he stared into the darkness and felt the darkness stare back. Two creatures shocked into silence by the discovery of another mind.   
The silence was broken by the centipede, who simply repeated back the same phrase: one low hiss, two rapid clicks. Myrio was stunned. In such a simple interaction, his understanding of the situation entirely changed. His mind reeled at the implications of this discovery. He repeated the phrase and once again it was repeated back to him again.   
A long stretch of silence occurred as each of the den’s inhabitants pondered the other. Eventually, Myrio returned to eating the last bits of his fruit, but did not take his eyes off the darkness where his captor lay. For the rest of that night, there would be silence. But with the realization he had made would have to be addressed again. He did not know what to think at the moment. There was too much to consider. But as he drifted into sleep again, one thing was certain: the ache of existential loneliness was dulled.


	6. Understood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could there possibly being a thinking mind behind that cold hard carapace? Myrio attempts communication again and makes a discovery.

Over the next several weeks Myrio began to regain his will to live. He was still stuck in a hell of a situation, blind and helpless underground with a bus-length monster and a belly full of eggs. But at least now he had a distraction. Ever since he had stumbled upon the beast’s language, he could not stop thinking about it. There was very little to hold his attention in the den. There were the random pains of his body, bruised and malnourished and still stuffed with eggs, and he was happy to be distracted from all of that. So he listened. The beast was noisy. It spoke to itself frequently, as if narrating its own activities and thoughts to no audience in particular. When it spoke, Myrio would carefully listen. He would pick apart the strange strings of hissing and clicks and hums. He would find phrases and would memorize them, trying to divine what they could possibly refer to. It was not easy, but he had nothing else to do, so within a day he had a whole head full of memorized ‘centipede words.’ He only knew the meanings of a few though. The fateful word that he had repeated back to the centipede that time, when he had first realized the creature’s intelligence, turned out to refer to the fruits he’d been brought. The centipede brought them to him frequently, keeping him hydrated and fed. And everytime it returned to the burrow with the water-filled plants it would repeat the word. He had also figured out the word that meant “prey.” Occasionally, the centipede would return with food for itself. Myrio could not see what it had caught, but he would hear the wet noises of it eating. He would also recognize a word he could only guess referred to the meal. So he had learned “fruit” and “prey.”   
It was like this for a long time. A very strange relationship where Myrio would listen and recognize certain phrases, but could not derive any meaning from them or do anything with them. But he wasn’t all that interested in what the creature was saying anyways. He was far more interested in the simple fact that it was speaking. He let himself entertain the notion that this centipede was using intelligent speech. If that were true, it meant it was not a mindless beast, but a thinking being. How intelligent could it be? And what was the nature of that intelligence? These were still mysteries. But Myrio felt comforted, or at least distracted, to perhaps not be utterly alone in the universe. At the very least, there was one other conscious being. Even if it would eventually kill and eat him, this was… a soothing discovery. 

Weeks went on like this. Or at least it felt like weeks. Myrio had no accurate gauge of time. He could barely tell the day and night apart by the change of temperature in the den, and he’d lost count of the days quickly. He would not be rescued, so why should he have cared about time? Mostly he slept. When he did not sleep, he either listened to the monotonous language of the centipede or, when it was silent or not in the den, he would think of his old world and everything he’d left behind. He hadn’t had much by the end of that life. If he had, he never would have allowed himself to be drafted into their desperate hibernation program. He was living in poverty, with no friends or family left. The world had been falling apart. Still, he missed human faces. He missed food, real food. He missed talking. He told himself that he was fortunate. The deprivation of his old life only made it hurt a little less when it was taken away. But sometimes, when he was alone in the den and could not sleep, he would remember his mother’s face and weep. 

Then there were the eggs. He tried very hard not to think about them. And he was successful, mostly. If he did not move around much, he would not feel them and could put them out of his mind. But when he had to eat, or move to the makeshift toilet he had dug out in a far corner of the den, he would be reminded of their presence by the sharp stabs of pain in his gut. He had tried to remove them more times then he could count. But they would not budge from inside him. They were fixed tightly in place. He somehow was still able to get food through his body, but if he ate too much it would cause horrible aching for hours. So he ate small amounts of the fruit he was brought over time. When he could not distract himself from the horrible reality that he was a living egg sack, he would have nightmarish visions of the eggs hatching, the larvae bursting out of his stomach or eating all his organs while he writhed in agony. He thought he had nothing more to lose, but when he thought of those things, he realized that at the very least he could hope for an easier death. There was nothing he could do but avoid thinking about it. He hoped that the eggs might die inside him anyways. This couldn’t be a very natural method of incubation for the species. 

Eventually, Myrio grew restless. He could not stand another day of staring into the dark and doing nothing. His body had healed and was eager to be used again. His desire for stimulus of any kind began to outweigh his fears. It was only a matter of time until he again attempted communication with the centipede.  
It was on impulse when it actually happened. It was a particularly cool night in the den and he could not sleep. The centipede had been leaving more frequently lately and for longer periods of time. Myrio began to feel something akin to loneliness in its absence. Having the creature beside him helped remind him that he was in a den, not a grave. So after hours of trying to force himself to sleep with no success, the sound of pointed legs punching earth coming from the entrance of the den was welcome. It had returned without meat again. It quickly flung a few of the fruit it had gathered in Myrio’s direction before coiling tightly. It was curiously silent, which was unlike it. It was usually so noisy after a hunt. Myrio did not have any reference for centipede behavior, but he guessed that this might be frustration. It was almost as if it was pouting. Strangely humanizing for such a beast.   
The silence began to annoy Myrio. Listening to the creature’s strange language was his only form of entertainment and he had come to expect it. But the centipede seemed intent on staying silent. Boredom turned out to be a good motivator, because Myrio found himself trying to provoke the creature into speech. He whispered the word he’d said last time, ‘fruit’, but there was no response. He repeated the word again, louder this time. Then again, even louder. The centipede’s upper body suddenly lifted off the ground, turning to stare at Myrio. Once again, both beings pondered the other, wondering if the strange creature before them could possibly be like themself, or if this was just a fluke event repeated again. The centipede must have decided on the latter, because after a brief moment of tense silence, it returned to its coil. Myrio waited for any further reaction and got nothing. It appeared that any suspicions of the beast’s intelligence he’d had were simply delusions he’d gotten too caught up in. He was ready to give up when the horror of existential loneliness struck him. His belief that just maybe this thing he was now living with was a conscious being like himself, that had been comforting to him. And now it felt like that comfort was being ripped away. What a devastating disappointment that he would return to his feeling of complete solitude in the universe. As dread and despair began to set in, he decided he wasn’t going to let them take hold. A fierce impulse to prove he wasn’t alone overcame him, and he began to hiss.   
He hissed and clicked and began to spit out every word he had memorized from the strange language he’d been meticulously analyzing for the past few weeks. They tumbled out of his mouth, his tongue and lips struggling to form the strange alien sounds, but not stopping. It was the most noise he’d made in weeks and it was liberating. He couldn’t stop himself. He reached a feverish pitch, spiting out a string of words whose meanings he did not know and which could not have possibly made any sense. But his goal was not to make sense. He only sought to accomplish one thing, and he was desperately set on it. He cried out in an alien tongue, attempting to piece through the dense suffocating void that separating all conscious beings from all others. He was attempting to do what all intelligent life ached to do. He was trying to sooth the ever present loneliness of existence. He was trying to connect.   
He knew he must have sounded absurd to the centipede. He did not even know if he was properly replicating its language at all. And of course, there was a chance that it might decide to silence this noisy thing in its den through lethal force. But if there was a chance to break through and make any connection in this desolate wasteland, even with a monster, he realized now that he would take it. 

He was screaming now. The ugly sounds tearing up his throat as tears rolled down his face. His hands shook as all his emotion escaped him in a vicious torrent of sound. And then he was silenced by the beast as it snatched up his body and pressed him into the wall, it’s sharp front-end legs cutting into his shoulders. Myrio’s first thought was that this was the end. That it would all be over soon. But the awaited killing blow never came. The creature just held him there, studying him. Myrio did not know if he was imagining it, but ever so faintly in the darkness, he thought he could see eight little beady eyes staring into his own.   
“Prey” it hissed. Two short high-pitched hisses attached together. One of the few words he recognized. It seemed to be waiting for a response.   
“Prey” he hissed back, attempting to mimic the sound as best he could.   
Another unbearably long moment passed as both creatures wrestled with the recognition of the other.   
The centipede raised one of its longer front claws and tapped it squarely against Myrio’s chest.   
“Prey.” It said again.   
Myrio got the message. He slowly brought his own hand up and placed it on his chest,   
“Prey” he said in its tongue and then, in his own, “I am prey?”   
With this exchange, loneliness was replaced by a million questions regarding the other. The possibility of communication expanded the realm of interaction beyond anything either of them had ever considered possible.   
Somehow, Myrio understood that the creature did not intend to eat him. It was trying to communicate, but it was also perhaps naming him? Assigning a sound it could use to refer to this unknown thing it had discovered. Myrio could not argue that it wasn’t fitting.   
“If I am prey…” Myrio muttered in his human tongue, “then you… are…” He brought his hand away from his own chest, and placed it against the belly of the centipede, hoping that the message was understood.   
The centipede remained silent for a time and Myrio guessed it did not understand. 

But then, it spoke its own name.


	7. Named

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The name 'Myrio' is no more as Prey goes through changes in his new world.

The centipedes of the desolate lowlands spoke a crude and simple language. They strung together a handful of hisses and clicks with the occasional hum and chitter to create a functional vocabulary. The language was nothing to write poetry with, but it accomplished the task it was created for. The centipedes were a mostly solitary kind but not always. They would meet with others of their species for matters such as breeding, territory disputes, information sharing, migration, and even pack hunting, when prey was difficult to catch alone. They even occasionally lived together in small groups when the circumstances demanded it. At rare times like these, their language was put to use. It could produce little more than short phrases from limited vocabulary, relied heavily on context, and constantly required the invention of new supplemental words. Communication wasn’t the only use for the language however. The centipedes also spoke when they were alone. A solitary centipede could be heard hissing and clicking throughout the day, verbalizing its consciousness at nearly all hours, except when it slept or was hunting. They did this as a way of scaffolding their thoughts, directing and focusing their otherwise erratic minds. They were not mammals and could not automatically focus like the warm-blooded creatures that came before them could. They could succumb very quickly into unpredictable bursts of instinct, fighting with their more rational mind for dominance. The use of language helped hone the rational brain and keep it in charge. Additionally, it prevented the centipede’s communication skills from falling into disuse during long solitary periods. 

Centipede’s did not have personal names exactly, but they did have titles others could refer to them by. In the centipede world, an individual was closely associated with the territory he controlled. They usually called each other by the names of each other’s land. A centipede without territory was less of an individual and remained nameless.   
Prey’s centipede controlled a southern piece of lowland just below the east mountains. The dirt of this land was a particularly red color from iron deposits below the ground, and so the name of both the territory and the centipede that lived there was “Red Dirt.” But most simply called him “Red.”   
Prey did not know the alien sound he spoke had any other meaning beyond referring to his beastly companion. But he would likely stumble on its second meaning soon, he was learning words at an incredible rate. Centipedes took years to learn even a handful of terms, and this strange fleshy thing had learned enough to communicate well in just a matter of months. Red had a well developed sense of curiosity for a centipede and was endlessly curious about Prey.   
He had named him “Prey” on a whim. It seemed fitting. He was weak, soft, herbivorous and just begging to get eaten wandering around alone in the middle of his territory. But there were a number of distinctly un-preylike traits he had as well. He had smelled of metal when Red had first found him, which was a mystery he had still not figured out. He was particularly warm, much warmer than most other prey, and for that reason made a good egg sac. But most of all, he was not dumb like other prey. This Prey was intelligent. It could speak the language of the centipedes. There was a conscious mind inside it, just as there was in himself. So Prey was actually quite different from the rodents and beetles and other hunted creatures, but the name stuck nonetheless. 

Prey was walking with Red now, accompanying him to collect the roots they both needed for water. It was strange how fast an old identity could fade away and be replaced, especially when there was nothing left to maintain it. That was the fate of Myrio. He hadn’t heard his human name in months and so it faded away, replaced by the only name used for him, “Prey.” So Prey took the opportunity as a sort of rebirth. Not that he had much of a choice. This new world was going to reform him one way or another. He could only resist it for a time.  
Over the past few months, he’d tentatively begun to embrace it. With the discovery of communication, he had learned so much about his captor and his new world. Red had begun to tire of his constant questions. At first he had just asked for words. His hunger for new words was endless. The more he learned, the more he was able to ask about. Even now, while Red was busy trying to detect the slightest smell that would give away the location of the water-bearing root, Prey was striding along beside him on those awkward gangly limbs, asking him more questions.   
“You like fruit?” He asked,   
“No.” Red curtly responded. His antennae rapidly tapped the dry earth as they walked.   
“Need water?” Prey asked,   
“Yes.” Red responded.   
His curiosity was sated for only a mere few moments before he spoke again, “Eggs hatch soon?”   
Prey asked this question constantly. As soon as he’d figured out enough of the language to ask questions, he sought out all the information he could regarding the eggs inside him. Would he lay them as eggs? Or would they hatch inside of him? Would it hurt? Would he survive? Or would he be killed? Would the larvae eat him? Predictably, Red was neither interested in giving answers, nor was he able to provide much information. His own knowledge of the reproduction process was based on instinct and the scraps of information gained from rare communication with others of his kind. He left most of the questions unanswered. Basically the only thing he had told Prey was that the eggs would not kill him. That he would have to birth the young, but would remain alive. He mostly told him this to make him shut up. He had no idea if it was true. If the strange creature did die, it would be for the good of the species and would ensure his offspring to survive.   
Red stopped suddenly and shifted his head from the ground to Prey’s distended belly, tapping his cord-like antennae against the taut skin. Prey froze up, his heart rate quickened. Red could sense the pulse on his skin. He could also feel the miniscule movements of his developing young inside their eggs. They were healthy. His gamble with this warm bodied creature had paid off. He could bring the eggs with him wherever he went, he could sleep with them in his own den, he could guard them at all times and they would remain warm and healthy. It was a shame there weren’t more of Prey’s kind around, they were quite the useful innovation.   
Prey stayed frozen as his belly was inspected. It was easy to fall into a kind of wary ease around Red now that he could speak to him. But moments like these jumped out at him quite often still, where he would be staring at the beast’s beady unblinking eyes and needle sharp mouth pieces and remember that this thing could kill him at any moment it wanted. Furthermore, despite a rudimentary language, the mechanisms of its mind were still alien to Prey, and its actions were therefore not predictable. He stared into the hard insectoid visage and knew that just because it had a name, did not make it something other than a vicious hunter. For now, Prey felt confident that the eggs within him meant he would not be killed, but the question tugged at the corners of his thoughts even when he tried to push it away: What happens after the eggs are were longer inside him? He stared into the many black eyes of the centipede and could not find an answer. 

In Red’s mind, it would be unpleasant to eat Prey. Although he had initially planned on making him into a snack after the eggs were hatched, that changed when he discovered the creature’s intelligence. There were plenty of Red’s kind who would gladly eat their own kin if they were hungry. But just like humans, there was variation in the morals of centipedes too. Red himself found the notion of cannibalism distasteful and had never tasted the flesh of his own species. He found that the idea of eating Prey off put him in a similar way. Though to call it a taboo was not exactly accurate. He might not take pleasure in it, but if times were tough, he would not turn down a potentially life-saving meal, even if it could speak his tongue. 

Unfortunately, times were indeed tough. Prey was unusually scarce in the desert. Red’s last few meals had been nothing but rats. It was not a sustainable diet. Certainly not after all the energy expended in laying eggs. He survived on rats and roots for now, but his body grew weak and he knew it. He needed a larger meal soon. While he searched for the water bearing roots, he would occasionally sweep his antenna through the air, searching for any sign of nearby prey. When he was this hungry, he was always hunting.

He located water before food though, and began to dig into the earth to retrieve them. At the very least, they would provide something to temporarily quell his belly aches.   
As his front claws flung dirt out behind him, soft fleshy appendages reached in to do the same, albeit much less effectively. Red shoved them away.   
“I help!” Prey clicked, reaching back in.   
“You no help.” Red shoved his hands away again. Prey grunted and sat and watched.   
Despite his best attempts to ignore the little egg sac, Red found himself fascinated with the creature. Each day he would discover some new bizarre little behavior. He did not behave like a rat or beetle or lizard or even a centipede. It was strange. 

Prey learned that the “fruit” brought to him was actually a water gorged root dug up from deep underground. It was brown and bumpy with soft white flesh inside. Prey enjoyed regaining his sense of sight again when out of the den on these brief occasions and stretching his legs was pleasant, even if the weight of the eggs made walking a bit awkward. For the first time in weeks, he was experiencing pleasure. It was simple and fleeting pleasure, only present for as long as anxiety and dread could be kept at bay, but nonetheless, it was nice. Prey even might have felt a twinge of contentedness as he sat next to Red, drinking from his root and watching the white hot sun dip down towards the horizon. Nearly everything he’d once known, including his own name, was gone, but the sun remained. A simple ball of fire, constant throughout his previous and current life. He liked to watch it set when the occasion was allowed. 

Suddenly, Red picked up the scent of a mammal. Another rat possibly, but possibly something more substantial too. It was only half a mile away from the scent of it. Whatever it was, it was worth hunting. Without so much as a warning click, Red sped off across the desert with incredible speed. There was no running from a centipede. You hid or you fought but you could not run. Best of all to just avoid detection.   
Prey remained alone. This happened enough that he had grown used to it, though the suddenness of it still startled him. He did not like to be left alone out in the open desert though. So, Sunset or not, he got up to return to the den. He could find his way back from here, they hadn’t traveled very far.   
As he took his first steps back, the eggs in his intestines stretched something a bit too far and the resulting pain brought him to his knees.   
“AH!” He cried, gripping his stomach. He clenched his eyes and tried to ride out the wave of pain. He had become better at dealing with the pains of his strange pregnancy. If he did not move, the stabbing sensation would depart as quickly as it had come. Still, it was intense for the moment it lasted. When he returned to standing, his knees wobbled from the physical aftershock.   
“Was it like this when I was inside you, Mom?” Prey asked the phantom of his mother. Though even if she was present, she would not have understood the question. She would not have understood it because it came out in a series of clicks and hisses mixed with human words in a strange garbled mess. Prey did not even realize he’d spoken it that way until it left his lips. But when he realized what he'd done, he was deeply disturbed. The beast was nowhere to be seen… and yet, he’d used its language. The tongue was no longer an impersonal tool, but a part of him now.   
Prey touched his lips, he looked down at his bulging abdomen, and he knew that this world was changing him. Dread overtook him.


	8. Protected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prey's relationship with Red grows and develops, just like the brood within him.

Prey writhed in the dirt of the larger den, no longer confined to his little hole. His hole was not big enough to let him twist and bend his body in agony. Spasmodically flinging his body this way and that was all he could do in response to the onslaught of stabs to his abdomen, each one impossibly stronger than the last. He could only writhe and whimper the pathetic whimpering of a pregnant boy overburdened by his clutch. He did not form words, just bellowed vowels and sharp squeaks. Occasionally a hiss would escape him, and this might have once concerned him, weeks ago, but now his days were spent doing nothing but chasing brief moments of relief. An archipelago of respite in a dark swirling sea of ache. He found himself praying once again, to anyone, that this might end soon. That he might be rid of his burden. That he might give birth. He did not even know if he would birth the larvae. He’d figured out a while ago that Red really had no clue how this whole process would end. But if merely containing the eggs felt like this, perhaps death was preferable to the pain of birth, not that his body was killable. After going through all of this, he was starting to feel like a sickly immortal.  
He pressed his hands to his overfull abdomen, his womb. The pain had started several days ago, he did not know how many, as the eggs began to stretch his organs outwards. It had started as mild discomfort, but the eggs grew quickly in the final stretch of gestation. It did not take long to reach the soaring heights of pain when the larvae jostled within their shells, pushing his insides around as they tried out their newly formed muscles. His belly was absurdly stretched around his brood. A heavy, taut, womb uncannily similar in appearance to that of normal human pregnancy. Had Prey been in the world of the living, he would have needed maternity clothing. But now he was naked. Naked and sweaty and dirty, praying in an unintelligible mix of two languages for deliverance. 

In a state like this, swallowed by darkness and writhing in pain, time was only marked by the edges of relief. He did not know how long he’d been crying out in the dark when it finally subsided, but he knew it was night when it did. The den was chilly with night air. He lay exhausted, unwilling and unable to move a single muscle. What caused the larvae to move about and what caused them to be still was a mystery he had no answer to, despite a desperate search. When they ceased moving though, the pain was manageable. A blessing compared to the alternative.

But blessings were not long had in the red dirt desert. It seemed that just as relief arrived, discomfort would find another way in. A tremendous booming sound echoed across the plain. It frightened Prey, though he did have the strength to physically react. Even Red, who was up to this point resting a foot away, raised its head, antennae swinging with alarm. It began to speak, and there were several words Prey did not recognize. The booming sound surrounded them again, and Prey now remembered the sound.  
Thunder. Though muffled by the dirt above them, that was the distinct sound of thunder. Prey had not heard it in so long. He’d nearly forgotten it.  
The thought occurred to both him and Red at the same time. With thunder came rain. And as if summoned by their thoughts, the infinite drumming sound begining above them signaled the fall of rain. Heavy rain it seemed. Prey had assumed it did not rain here in the desert, but this new world refused to be even slightly predictable. Rainstorms here were rare, but when it rained in the desert, it poured. It did not take long for the saturated humidity to enter the den, followed quickly by a small trickle of muddy rainwater. That trickle grew fast, and in no time at all a river rushed down to wash over Prey’s body and turn the den into mud. Prey shivered, chilled by the water, barely able to hold his head up above the puddle he found himself in. To think, just weeks ago, he’d let himself have a sliver of hope. Now he was naked, cold, wet, filthy, and pregnant deep underground. It was enough to make even him, who had unexpectedly scored so well on a mental fortitude assessment, give up. 

Had he been alone, he might have. But as he shivered and gasped in the cold, Red began to move. Prey expected him to leave. Perhaps to escape the muddy confines of the den for a bit, and feel the swirling winds above. But Red began to encircle Prey, his long flat body forming a barrier between the incoming water and the boy. Prey reached out a weak hand to touch Red’s belly, and felt a hard sharp leg brush him. A comforting touch? Or just an accident? It didn’t matter, Prey made it what he needed it to be. He needed a companion and at this point he did not care to which phylum they belonged. He whispered a grateful click, though he was sure it was not heard.  
Red continued to wrap himself protectively around Prey, forming something of a crude dome, just large enough to contain the human’s little body. Inside the dome, Prey’s body heat was preserved, and he was able to warm some. He was shielded away from the cold incoming water as well. And with the brood still miraculously calm, he was finally able to sleep.

He woke not too long after the storm had passed to the sound of Red unfurling his body. The brood was still calm within him, they often were when he first woke, but he knew it would not be long before they returned to their thrashing. He grimaced at the thought of more pain and at the unpleasant saturation of his wet skin, but he was grateful the storm had at least passed. Moreso he was grateful for the protection Red had offered. He had long grown used to living with the beast, but such a kind act made him suddenly quite endeared to his companion. He felt, perhaps for the first time, an upwelling of genuine affection for the centipede. Despite everything, Prey could still have these moments of gladness and hope. The den was warming, Red had gained new humanity, and the larvae were at peace. In that moment, Prey went against his better judgement and held onto hope for a little longer. Hope for what he could not say. But something in the boy made him push on, always, even when he didn’t know why. 

Red seemed to be leaving the den now and Prey wanted to follow. He had not been outside in so long since his brood had grown so large. He suddenly desired, like Red, to feel the wind on his body, to smell something other than dirt, and to see again. He crawled up after Red, heavy belly brushing against the dirt. He now remembered why he so rarely left the den: movement in this state was laborious and painful. Still, he was able to make it to the ground outside, albeit slowly. The sunlight, it was day apparently, blinded him for the first few minutes and he crawled forward to grope about and find Red. But after a few moments, he adjusted and was able to look out onto the transformed desert.  
Most of the water had soaked into the ground and before the day was over the sun would dry everything out, returning things to their normal state. But for now, the air was thick, the ground a little softer, and all the red in the desert had turned a deep wet umber. There were clouds too, which were typically rare around here. As he looked out onto the changed landscape, Prey felt almost like he was back home again, on Earth. And of course, he was still on Earth. The planet had outlasted his civilization and would outlast many after it. But it certainly felt like an alien world most of the time. But the feeling of wet heat in the air after a storm, that was familiar to prey. Something he could recall memories of from before hibernation. Such things were rare now. 

Using Red as a crutch, Prey hobbled to his feet. Both the weight of his gravid belly and the disuse of his legs made bipedal motion quite difficult, but with a little assistance from Red, he was able to take a few wobbly lurching steps forward.  
So much had changed since his arrival here. Myrio had been thrust out into this world by the cruelty of random chance and cursed with the fate of surviving it. Myrio was gone now. In his place stood Prey. Myrio had been plumper, Prey was withered. Myrio had been scared, Prey’s fear was dulled. Myrio had cried for his mother, Prey was soon to be one. Myrio had been alone, Prey looked to his left and saw a companion.  
The open desert with its endless miles of featureless land had a way of punctuating loneliness, but that power was weakened now as arthropod and mammal walked side-by-side out of their shared den.  
Prey gripped his pregnant belly and wondered, for the first time, if he would name his children. He then realized that this was the first time he’d even considered them ‘children.’ Were they children? Or just parasites to be rid of? He was unsure.  
He would not be given much time to consider the question however, as a particularly sharp jolt in his abdomen signalled that the young were waking in their shells. Prey was turning to return to the den when he felt a warm viscous fluid drip down his thigh. Blood? No. More sharp pains followed and suddenly a flood of the slimy fluid was pouring out of Prey. Red, who had been intently surveying the air for prey before this, now fixed his attention of Prey’s womb. Prey brought his hands to his belly and felt the squirming movements of something free of a shell. He and Red became aware of it at the exact same time: he was about to give birth.


	9. Born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But this was an event that escaped all explanation. A momentous event that would set on course the eventual intertwining of two species."

Giant centipede eggs are, if lucky, stuffed into a warm corpse and buried underground. The corpse provides insulation for the temperature-dependent eggs and if it hasn’t rotted completely by hatching time, it serves as a first meal as well. The eggs are affixed deep within the corpse by a thick jelly that holds them in place and protects them from any harmful fluids or parasites. When the eggs burst, the amniotic fluid chemically reacts with this jelly, liquifying it so the young can move freely out of their incubator.  
This liquified jelly was now rushing down Prey’s legs, mixing with the rain water in the earth below him. As the last of it dribbled out of him, the pressure in his intestines released, offering some relief from an uncomfortable tightness that had plagued the boy for weeks. This feeling might have been more welcomed if it was not immediately followed by the vigorous thrashing of baby centipedes eager to try out their new bodies. Normally, the incubation corpse would be soft enough by hatching that even newborns could rip and tear and eat their way out. But Prey’s brood found themselves within the sturdy inner walls of a still very alive mother. They of course attempted to follow instinct, digging into Prey’s innards with blunted claws and tiny mouths, and the transparent flow of fluid out of Prey turned pink from their efforts. But they were not old enough yet to pierce living flesh, so, eventually, they found their way down to the only exit.  
Suffice to say, this was not at all pleasant for Prey, who would not be spared the pain of childbirth, despite his sex.  
He did not stay upright very long, and collapsed onto Red, who eased him onto the ground. Giant Centipedes do not watch their eggs hatch, and so this was as foreign an experience to Red as it was to Prey. Neither knew what to do or what would happen. But the newborns did most of the work themselves. By now, Prey was on his back, head resting on Red, legs bent and spread, struggling just to breathe steadily. It was horrifying, the feeling of little insects digging around within him, looking for a way out...or trying to make one. All his time carrying them had not prepared him for this. He closed his eyes and made one last prayer to a half-remembered god from a dead age that this would be over soon. Whether he lived or died, he prayed it would be swift. His fingers gouged into the wet dirt and he hissed to Red, “HURTS!” He repeated it, over and over again, using his second language every time. There was some scrap of comfort to be had knowing that at least something could understand his pain. Red for his part did not respond. It was one of the few times he fell silent, antennae fixed on Prey’s belly, awaiting his young to burst out at any moment. Empathy was not a common emotion of the centipedes, but something was stirring in the back of his arthropodal mind. Something dusty with disuse. Perhaps he even felt sadness in this moment, regret for ever laying eggs inside Prey. It was nothing more than a tingle, buried under the usual piloting instincts, but it was there. Unignorable, like an itch.  
“Hurts! Red! Hurts!” Prey cried again, invoking Red’s own name, which made the itch flare up. He could feel the young moving inside him. It was dreadfully crowded in there. The birth could have been much more orderly and swift if Centipede young only knew how to form a line. But they did move. The pace was agonizingly slow, but they did move down towards their exit little by little.. 

And when the pain became too much to bear, Prey turned to his side and threw his arms around Red. He clung there, limp as a corpse, his cries melting into a low drawn out unintelligible sound. In the moments just before his first birth, he shut his eyes and allowed the usual hallucinations to overtake him. Snapshots of places no longer remembered in full, his mother’s face, the sleeping pods, what his body had looked like before all this. The visions behind his eyelids overwhelmed him and in that moment he felt like he’d been washed away into the ocean. A helpless speck adrift in an uncaring world. There was nothing else, just him and the vastness and its horrors. It was the same feeling that pervaded life here since the start, but it was now that he felt it most acutely. Total anomie just before birth. Darkness before dawn. 

When he opened his eyes, he saw the face of Red, bent down to gaze at him from inches away. It was so rare that he got to see Red’s face above ground in the light. But it was a strangely welcome sight for Prey. His wine-red hue, black unblinking eye clusters, twitching clicking black-tipped claws, there was an otherworldly handsomeness to it all. It took the place of a comforting human face, and Prey did not mind the difference. And the itch in the back of Red’s mind found itself mirrored in Prey. 

The first born of the brood had now made its way to Prey’s anus, and with all the fury of its father’s species, began to emerge. Prey shrieked as it’s spikey little body slipped out of his most sensitive region. It was followed by the others shortly after, all fighting to be second and third in birth order now that an exit had been found. In just a few minutes, all six of the newborns were birthed. There had been more eggs laid, but the centipede egg survival rate was low. Most of the others had not even made it past the earliest stages of development. Six was actually quite large for a single brood, and Red chittered with excitement. The wonder of new life was not lost even on a species such as his own. The rest of the egg debris would pass through Prey later, but for now, the task was complete.  
Prey turned his weary eyes onto the young. They lay in a wet pile between his legs, colored a stark white. In the tangled pile, their body shape was not immediately clear, but as Prey’s eyes began to pick out the details, the genetic miracle that had occurred within him became clear. The newborns were not centipedes. They were not human either. They were something of a mix. Tiny human infant torsos attached to thin multi-legged bodies. Hybrids.  
Centipede eggs occasionally adopted traits of their host corpses due to some near-magical genetic process. But this was an event that escaped all explanation. A momentous event that would set on course the eventual intertwining of two species.  
The newborns squirmed and cried, their chubby baby hands grasping blindly, their lower bodies twirling and thrashing about, as if unaware that they had already escaped the womb. Their cries were strange and squeaking, mewls and tiny little clicks. They writhed in the sun, burning in its harsh light. Prey stared at them with a dumb expression. They were nothing like the nightmares he’d had. They were so small and fragile. So… like himself.  
His heart burst with maternal instinct and it gushed out of him, overflowing, covering him and transforming him. His body moved on its own, scooping up the babies, HIS babies, up against his chest to shield them from the sun. Before he knew it he was crying, pressing them to his face and babbling like they were. Red only watched from over his shoulder, perplexed by this display of emotion.  
It took a while for Prey’s unintelligible sobbing to calm enough to form bursts of human language.  
“My babies! I’m… I… I love you!” He choked, rocking them gently in his arms. The babies, now shaded from the sun, calmed. They were tiny, heads smaller than Prey’s palms, centipede bodies thin as his withered arms. It was hard to believe these tiny helpless white things had come from an apex predator like Red.  
“Precious!” Prey shouted, “Precious! Precious!”

Eventually, Prey would be back in the den, curled around his six newborn children in the safety of the dark. But for now, he prayed a prayer of thanks that he was allowed to birth them in the light of day and look upon their faces.


	10. Separated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prey finds happiness again with the birth of his six children. But a shortage of prey looms over the new family.

Prey’s body spent the next several days healing from the birth. The newborn centipedes, his babies, had done a number on his insides. Everything was still functional but the pain would linger for a few weeks. It was only a fraction of what he’d gone through during gestation though, so now was his time to rest. What a journey it had been. Pain of every kind, every step of the way. Before the storm, he would have paid anything to be rid of the brood within him. Now, he would pay any price to keep it.  
The six children he’d birthed lay curled up in a pile against his belly, encircled by Prey’s arms and thighs. It was almost as if they’d never left the cozy cocoon of their mother. Even after the birth, they were able to enjoy the warmth of his body, another benefit to a live human incubator. The babies were only a few days old now, and like human newborns, completely dependent. They spent nearly all their time sleeping, interrupting it occasionally to make shrill squeaks and squirm closer to their source of warmth, fighting over coveted skin space with inarticulate limbs. Red did not like this. He gave Prey a mere couple of hours with the little ones before he started clamoring on about how they should be hunting by now. The idea of a dependent newborn was a foreign concept to him. If they were not ready to leave the nest by birth, why would they even be birthed? What good was all that time in the womb if they came out unfinished? Despite his impatience, he did not kick out the babies. He griped about them and their irritating noises, but he let them stay with Prey. He did not really know what to do about the situation. It was completely novel, not just to him but to centipedes as a species. Most centipedes laid eggs and that was that. The height of parenthood was finding a nice corpse to incubate in. They never actually saw the young hatch. Nor did their young come out with strange half-mammal forms. Nor was a mother involved. What had originally been a clever idea of Red’s had tumbled into this mess of two tangled species he no longer had full control over.   
For the most part, he lived as he always had. They were young and their mother did not take up much room in the den, and besides their occasional chirping, they didn’t do much. Of course, he had considered the possibility of kicking the babies out to fend for themselves. He could have even devoured Prey now that his usefulness was used up. Fortunately, Prey had been asleep when Red was processing these thoughts out loud. But he was safe. Not only did the sentience of Prey and the young make this an unenticing course of action to Red, but he had also grown attached to Prey, whether he acknowledged it or not. The children he had no fondness for yet, but no disdain either. If anything he was simply curious what would become of the freakish hybrids. His prodigy. Not that centipedes cared about that kind of thing the way humans did. 

Red was not in the den when Prey awoke. He was out hunting, as he had been since birth with little rest. He’d come back with empty pincers mostly, and Prey was beginning to worry. The flow of edible plants was constant, but it was easy to guess that the centipedes probably needed meat.   
But for once, Red was not the only family member to concern himself with. His waking movements roused the pale pile of infants, and they woke to their mother’s beaming face.   
“Hello, little ones,” Prey cooed, letting the most active grab onto his fingertips. Naming them all had been a full process. Prey wanted names that could be said in both human and centipede language, which substantially limited his choices. There would not be an Adam and Eve of this new species. Instead, there was Sunny, Storm, Melon, Hunter, Snow, and Fawn.  
Sunny, the firstborn, was named after the sunshine she was born into. The second born was named after the Storm preceding their birth. They were the two largest of the bunch. Prey was not sure how to differentiate the sex of his children, and was not even sure if they had sexes. In truth, they didn’t. The Giant Centipedes of the new world were a hermaphroditic species, with a mating process as unique as their egg-laying practices. So Prey simply decided gender based on arbitrary little details. Sunny and Storm, for instance, both were born with a few inches of silky white hair, while the others were bald or just sprouting the barest fuzz. And based on that, the two oldest became girls.   
Melon came next, the first boy, simply because Prey didn’t want to create a lopsided ratio. He got his name from the roots that made up most of his mother’s diet, and because he had a big head that he wasn’t able to lift for the first few days out of the womb. It was a funny name, and Prey had only meant it as a placeholder initially, but it stuck. Besides, who was there to judge the appropriateness of names now? To his knowledge, he was the only human left in the universe, naming children of a brand new race. Perhaps “Melon” would be passed down as a traditional name, used commonly for all Centi-humankind. Prey even amused himself with the idea of a Melon Jr., but given that he’d only considered himself a mother for a few days now, it was probably too soon to indulge fantasies of grandmotherhood.   
After the eldest son Melon, came Hunter. Red thought the very concept of naming infants was foolish. He did not understand Prey’s obsession with names. In his view, the young could have names when they claimed territory, maybe. Why would they be needed otherwise? But Hunter was the only name he seemed to like. At least it was an accurate descriptor. If the children were anything like proper centipede’s, they would be ferocious hunters (though given their soft upper bodies and dependence on their mother he was unsure). If prey insisted on naming them, he could at least have a little accuracy. Prey did not care much for ‘Hunter’ as a name, but he figured Red deserved at least a little input, so the second son became Hunter.   
Most of the babies started to darken soon after birth. Within a day, most had some manner of maroon spots or brindle coloring their centipede bodies. But Snow, the youngest daughter, had none. She remained uncolored, as brilliantly white as the hour she was born. Prey was surprised Red even had a word for snow. Where could he have possibly seen ice in a desert like this? But “cold hard water from the sky” was apparently something Red recognized. Prey was glad because he quite liked the name. It reminded him of a different world with better weather, and of softness and of some now-ancient holiday in the back of his mind.   
The final child, a boy for a perfect 3:3, was named Fawn. Apparently, according to Red’s rudimentary description, there were small hooved creatures with horns in the mountains that made excellent prey if you could catch them when they wandered too far into the foothills. Prey guessed that these might be deer, or the evolved descendents of them, and picked out the human word “fawn” as a name. It matched the color of the youngest’s hair, which was not a starke white like the others, but a tawny brown like his Mother’s. The color reminded Prey of deer pelts, and so the name was chosen. Red, though he professed to think naming the young was a pointless endeavor, had strong opinions regarding ‘Fawn.’ Naming a centipede hunter after a soft-skinned prey species? What a disgrace! But Prey stayed firm, and Red relented. With that, the brood was named. Sunny, Storm, Melon, Hunter, Snow, and Fawn. It was an awkward collection, but one that could be translated between two utterly foreign languages with relative ease. 

Prey brought the children up to the mouth of the Den so he could see them in the light of day. They were developing fast, darkening in color, moving with greater articulation and strength. Sunny had even begun to open her eyes, which were colored in sharply contrasting black, with startling rings of orange.   
“Good Morning, Sunny.” Prey said to the eldest as she rolled herself over Fawn and Melon. She chirped loudly in response, gazing at her surroundings with wide eyes while drool dribbled down her lip.  
“So curious, aren’t you?”   
Fawn squealed in protest as Storm pushed him out of his warm spot against Mama’s tummy. Prey picked him up, cradling him against his chest, which calmed him right down. He’d already started to view Fawn as something of the runt of the litter, which meant he got to be spoiled whenever he cried.   
Prey would spend most of his time just watching over the little ones, keeping them warm and content, feeding them smashed up root flesh and letting them suckle water from his off fingers. They were a welcome distraction into his world, and he obsessed over them. Talking to them like one would to a human child, imagining whole personalities from every little behavior. Simply put, they were his children. He wasn’t able to think of them any other way, even if he wanted.

He was rubbing the dirt off Snow when Hunter decided he was ready for a more substantial meal. Prey felt a tiny prick of little teeth, and looked down to see Hunter stubbornly attached to his thigh. Fortunately, his mouth was much too small and much too weak to do anything more than draw a couple droplets of blood, and Prey pulled him away with ease. He hissed in protest, waving his arms and antenna in wide arcs over his head. Prey giggled at his attempt at intimidation, and scooped up a bit of root pulp to feed him instead.  
He was cute, but his bite emphasized a concern Prey had been trying not to think about. These babies probably needed more than watery vegetables to grow. Their father fed almost exclusively on meat after all. Prey had assumed Red would provide meat for the little ones, but he’d been unable to bring anything back to the den since the birth. He didn’t want to worry, but it was getting hard to avoid now. Red spent more and more time out of the den, and yet brought back no meat. He’d been irritable lately, hissing and clicking about being hungry, especially when returning empty-clawed to the den. Prey’s anxious mind didn’t have to think very hard to imagine all the grim outcomes this could lead to. Red could starve, leaving the family without a provider, or maybe he would become so desperate he would devour Prey? He could abandon them in search of better hunting grounds, or worst of all, the babies might perish from malnutrition. Prey grimaced at the thought. He wouldn’t allow it. He would not let his precious gifts be taken from him so soon after arrival. He assured himself that it would not happen. But the truth was that it was beyond his control. All he could do is hope Red returned triumphant this time.

The babies were sleeping again at the bottom of the den when a very irate Red returned home. Prey could hear his shrieking before he even entered the burrow.   
“Nothing! Nothing! No rats even!”   
Another unsuccessful hunt. Prey’s heart sank.   
“Rain’s fault. Rain’s fault.” Red hissed. His claws violently flung dirt behind him as he stormed into the den. He brought with him a single water-root and some edible green stalks of vegetation, which he dropped unceremoniously in front of Prey. All the comotion woke the young, whose shrill clicks caused Red to snap.   
“Quiet!” He said with venom, snapping his jaws against each other.   
“Red, They are hungry!” Prey said, pulling the brood closer to himself.   
“No food. No food at all.  
“Maybe you will find prey next time?” Prey’s improving use of his new language did not allow him the ability to calm Red.   
“No! All prey is gone. Gone to -----” The last word Prey didn’t recognize.   
“Gone to where?”   
“Gone to -----, Big water after rain. All prey gone to drink.”   
After this long with him, Prey was pretty good at guessing what Red was talking about. This presented a bit of a challenge. Big water? Like the ocean? A lake?   
“Big water on low land.” Red added helpfully, and Prey guessed he was talking about a basin of some kind, where water had gathered after the rain. If that was the case, it would make sense that prey would go to the basin to drink in this harsh climate, like a watering hole.   
“Go hunt at basin?” Prey timidly suggested, using his newly learned word.   
Red did not respond immediately, instead coiling himself in the corner to sulk.   
“Basin far.” Another pause, and then, “I will go tomorrow.”   
“Oh! Easy then!” Prey said, switching over to his human tongue for just a moment. He wondered why Red hadn’t simply gone to the basin before now.  
“No. Basin very far. Long travel. Take four nights.”   
Prey’s worry began to return, “four nights?”   
“Four nights to go, four nights to come back.”   
“I understand.”   
“Not territory of Red. Other centipede land.”  
It was Prey’s turn to pause. He and Red had never really talked about other centipedes. Prey knew they must exist, but guessed they were pretty solitary. He didn’t know exactly what Red traveling into another’s territory meant, but Red didn’t sound too pleased about the idea.   
“Dangerous?” Prey asked, but Red did not respond. He was too proud to admit it, but traveling to the basin was a risk. Other centipedes would gather there and fights over prey would be common, and if there wasn’t enough prey to go around… well, there would be centipede’s who did not share Red’s distaste for cannibalism.  
Red did not speak anymore with Prey that night. Though he could be heard muttering in his coil all night, his mind buzzing with thoughts about the journey ahead. Prey barely slept himself, but stared into the pitch black of the den with Fawn cradled in his arms, the others asleep on his belly. As it always had, the sensory deprivation of the den allowed Prey to swim in his own thoughts. He thought of his changing relationship with Red and his newfound maternal attachment to his babies. So strange to have found value in this place. Even stranger to feel persistent fear and anxiety over threats to it all. A week ago he wanted to die. Now the natural instinct that pervaded all living things, the instinct to cling to life with a desperate clawing grip, it filled him again. He couldn’t allow himself to die, he had children to care for now. He had… in some strange way that he did not fully understand, a family. And when Red left in the morning, he ached for his return.


	11. Attacked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Mild Gore

Prey wandered the desert, eyes scouring the ground for any sign of edible plant life. He didn’t even know what to look for, Red had always done the hunting and gathering. He’d become absolutely useless in his time as a broodmother. He had found little in several days of periodic searching, and he knew it wasn’t enough. He was compelled still to search, partly out of the hope that he might get lucky, partly because frantic searching allowed him to calm his mind a bit. It wasn’t much, but it was better than sitting in the dark den alone with hungry young, spiraling downwards into grim fantasies. In addition to all the things he needed for survival; food, water, shelter, companionship, it was all too easy to forget sanity.   
Red had left enough food for maybe ten days. Mostly plants he had gathered, which were always in abundance. But he’d even found some beetles for the children. This was all they had until he returned, in eight days time, like he’d said. It had now been eleven days since his departure. Prey had rationed food out since Red left in preparation of exactly this scenario. But the children were ravenous. They begged for food night and day. They’d consumed all of the beetles in just three days, and the plants were going fast. Barely anything was left now. Prey kicked himself for not rationing more than he had, but he couldn’t bear to hear their hungry cries anymore. He himself had stopped eating anything days ago, and now his legs shivered as he walked in the heat of the sun. He found nothing above ground in his searching. He knew from watching Red that most edible foods lay buried, but he did not have the biological tools to sniff them out. He was a half-starved naked monkey in a desert, a hopeless case. He’d have to eat and drink a little from the dwindling reserve of roots back at the den just to keep himself going. He needed to be conscious to watch the little ones after all. They were so precious to him. His everything in this world. He simply could not lose them. It was the mantra in his head at all times. And it only caused more agony as the possibility of starvation crept closer and closer to reality.  
The sun was getting lower in the sky. He’d lose sight of the den if he stayed out much longer. Yet just when he was about to turn around and return for the day, a tiny movement caught his eye. Mere yards away from him, something crawled. Prey almost gasped, but caught it in his throat. Every muscle in his limbs stood still as stone as he eyed the potential prey. A beetle. Fat and round and bluish black, they were easy to confuse for rocks when viewed from afar. But this one had made the mistake of moving. Prey let instincts he didn’t even know he had take over. As a child he’d cried when his mother killed roaches. Now, he stared unblinkingly at this beetle, every fiber in his body aching to kill. It would feed the young for a day, maybe. Precious meat, it could not be allowed to escape. He took a step and the beetle froze in its tracks. Shit. Had it sensed him? Before he could even take another step, the hard outer shell split away from its back, allowing plasticky wings to unfurl. Prey broke into a sprint, hissing like an animal (a centipede, perhaps) as he closed the gap between him and the bug. It was lifting off the ground as he got to it, the low drone of its wings surrounding him. In just a fraction of a second, it would be out of his reach in the air. But by some incredible luck, his hands made contact. He didn’t even think about it, it was as if they moved over their own volition, snatching the squirming beetle from the air just in time. The taste of triumph was sweet… and short-lived. In snatching it, his hand had clamped down on the beetle’s head, and its jaws clamped in turn onto his finger with powerful force, sawing down to the bone. Prey screamed, one of the few human sounds he used anymore, and reflexively released the beetle. Before he’d even realized what he’d done, it was gone, the low hum of its wings fading away into the desert.   
Prey collapsed into the dirt, howling like a wounded animal and beating the ground with his fists.   
“NO!” He clicked, choking on the sound. His eyes squinted and his face grew hot but his body could not spare any water for tears. 

He returned to the den empty-handed. He wished he could just curl up in the corner and wait to die like he had when Red first found him. It had been an escape then. But now he could have no such refuge. Now he had something to live for.   
The children were loudest when he returned home. Their chittering sounds filled the underground chamber as they dragged themselves towards him. He liked to believe they weren’t just begging for food, but also expressed excitement to see their mother. On better days, that notion made him smile. Now though, he only felt shame and dread as he had nothing for them. They were creatures of ravenous metabolism, with the expedited growth of an arthropod and the fuel guzzling warm-bloodedness of a mammal. They begged for food at all hours, and now that most of them were able to drag themselves around, Prey had to bury what little reserves they had to keep them from devouring it all. Storm, perhaps the most active of the six, made it to her mother’s legs first, and even attempted unsuccessfully to climb up them. The others caught up to her and whined at Prey’s feet. Fawn, the runt, stayed in the little nest of soft dirt Prey had gathered for them. Unlike the others, he hadn’t learned to crawl yet. Prey knelt to greet the others and apologized for bringing back nothing to fill their stomachs, before he rushed over to Fawn. He worried about the ‘youngest’ of the brood. Fawn seemed less carnivorous than his siblings, eating far less meat and still not very much vegetation. While the others had grown, Fawn stayed nearly the same size as his mother’s arm, his human upper body able to fit snug in the palm of one hand. Prey picked him up like this, cradling him in one hand while stroking his fluffy brown hair with the other. His lower body wrapped itself around his arm, pointed legs clenching on as an anchor. His eyes stayed closed, but he babbled and raised his arms and antenna about as if searching the air for something to grasp. Or to eat, Prey thought with a pang of guilt. He let Fawn slobber on his hand while he helped the others back into their little nest, and fought with Storm and Hunter to get them to stay in place. No wasting energy when food was this low.   
He was trying to split up Hunter and Melon from wrestling with each other when he noticed the suckling sensation on his finger. Fawn had latched on to the finger that had been bitten in his failed hunt. In the darkness and his worry, he’d forgotten it was even injured, but now he could feel the flow of blood as Fawn sucked it from the wound. He stared down at his hand, feeling the gentle pulse of his baby’s suckling mouth, feeding off his blood. He was both relieved and unsettled at once. Of course, to feel himself be fed upon was a feeling his instincts strongly rejected, and the impulse to fling Fawn away from himself flashed in his mind. But it was only an impulse, one among many. His maternal nature proved stronger, and he let Fawn feed undisturbed. He was glad that Fawn was eating something, even if it was his own essence.   
The feeding only lasted a few minutes before Fawn decided he’d had his fill. Prey wiped his mouth clean and sat against the den wall contemplating this development. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but his own body would serve as the perfect sustenance for the young. It was a train of thought he wanted to abandon, but he couldn’t escape it. If it really came down to it… if his children’s lives were on the line… He looked down at Sunny who had wrapped herself around his leg and was sleeping soundly. The others were hungry too. His finger wound had stopped bleeding, but maybe if there was a way he could harvest his blood… His stomach turned at the thought, but it was the reality he had to contend with. He would do anything to keep his babies alive.   
At that very moment, while Prey was wrestling with disturbing notions in his head, the rapid-fire thumping of return caught his attention.   
“Red!” he cried, leaping to his feet. He gently pulled the children off himself so he could rush to greet his partner. He had never felt such strong feelings for Red as in that moment. What had once been terror had turned to wary acceptance had turned to comfort had turning to a slight tickle of affection had now, after his absence of eleven days, had turned to overflowing joy at his return. It was likely mostly relief that he would bring food for the children, but some part of him ached simply to see his companion again. The babies began to squeak again as Prey hurried up the burrow entrance, all excited by the vibrations of their father’s footsteps and their mother’s voice.   
“Red!” He cried out again, getting no response. He could hear his stamping just outside the entrance, why wasn’t he coming in?   
“Red?” He called again, starting to worry. Had something happened? Was he injured? Prey crawled faster, racing to the surface. Just before he made it out, a Centipede’s face poked in.   
In the fading sunlight, only a few feet away from him, Prey could see every detail. It wasn’t Red.   
It was a bit smaller, more black in color, and it moved with caution, its antennae tapping the walls of the den, picking up information.   
Terror seized Prey and his blood ran ice cold. He’d never even seen another centipede before. He’d forgotten the absolute fear Red had once inspired in him, the kind of danger he posed, how weak he felt in comparison. Now, it all rushed back to him. He stayed frozen, staring with wide eyes as it stared back at him. It seemed wary, unwilling to enter the burrow yet. It did not know if there was another centipede inside, but the smell of something soft and warm and tasty piqued its curiosity. It could smell traces of Red, but they were faint, days old. The tasty smell was fresh and right in front of him though. This strange long limbed creature it had found was unfamiliar, but he was hungry and centipedes are not picky eaters. It took a few tentative steps inside, still wary of stumbling into another of its kind, but gaining confidence. Prey finally gained the nerve to move, right as the unknown centipede was within biting range. He fell back onto his butt, scrambling backwards back down into the den, kicking dirt up at the intruder. This only livened the hunting instinct in his pursuer, and it slithered further in, anticipating the taste of flesh.   
“Stay out!” Prey hissed as he kicked his way further back down. This stopped the  
centipede for a moment. Hearing a prey animal cry out in its own language was a novel experience, puzzling even. But it was not as intellectually curious as Red and it was so hungry. It waited just a few precious seconds before it clicked back “prey,” not as a name, but as a category. To reaffirm just what it was it had encountered. Something edible, whether it could talk or not.   
It committed fully to the hunt now, sliding in after Prey, its front claws outstretched. Prey pushed himself away, but not quite fast enough. Searing pain shot through him as those claws caught him, piercing through flesh and cracking bone. It had caught him by the foot. He tried to pull away, screaming at the pain of his hooked foot. The centipede began to back out of the burrow, dragging him up with it, nearly tearing his foot off as it did. Prey howled, fingernails dragging against the dirt tunnel as he tried to pull himself away. But he was so weak, there was nothing he could do. Then a sound cut through the dizzying terror. It was Snow, at the bottom of the den, wailing. The others followed her lead, filling the den with noise. They were scared. They didn’t like the smell of a stranger or their mother’s screams. They called for him to return but he didn’t come running like he usually did. Prey heard them and realized that when this thing finished him off, it would crawl back into the burrow and gobble up each and every one of his little babies.  
It could not be allowed. Terror gave way to anger as Prey fought harder against the ascent. His hand brushed something hard. A stone. He grasped it, yanking it out of the dirt. What came next happened in a moment of fury unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He lunged forward, bending over to reach to the centipede’s head and brought the stone squarely down on it. “WHACK,” the sound resounded, but the centipede seemed barely harmed, only hissing in response as it continued to pull at Prey’s mangled foot.   
“WHACK,” He brought it down again, and again, and again, “WHACK WHACK WHACK!” His arm was moving like a machine now, the stone rising and falling several times per second, each time slamming into the centipede’s head with greater force. Prey let out a rage fueled roar and began to strike at the eyes. He would not let this monster harm his children, he would not leave them undefended. He would not be so easily defeated after everything he had been through!   
“WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! CRUNCK!” There the sound of something splitting, a sickly hollow noise, and then the terrible screeching of the Centipede. It released Prey’s foot and made a hasty retreat out of the den, screeching all the way. It’s cries didn’t stop for a moment, only fading as it ran far away from the burrow. 

Prey’s chest heaved, his head throbbed, his lip was bleeding, he couldn’t feel his foot. Before he could even calm himself, he scrambled back down to his babies, who were still wailing for him. His injured left leg dragged behind him. They were all gathered near the tunnel, climbing over each other to be the first picked up. Prey scooped all of them up in his arms, hugging them to his chest in a big tangled clump. He pressed his face into them and wept. No tears came but his body shook with the intensity of his emotions.   
“I love you, little ones.” He cooed, “I love you, you’re safe, I love you.” They were quieted now, save for Fawn, still stranded in the nest, crying. Prey hurriedly added him to the embrace. They were safe. Not safe by luck, but because he had fought for them. He could do it again if he had to. He did not know if the centipede intruder would return, but a fire burned within him now. He would protect his young, no matter what, with or without Red. Hope once again filled him as he fell asleep with the young in his arms.


	12. Reborn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GORE WARNING! This Chapter contains leg gore. Please proceed with caution.

When he awoke, the rush of emotion had settled, and he had the mind to consider his situation more carefully. The adrenaline had settled as well and the pain was what stirred him from sleep. It was a strange pain, fuzzy and sharp at the same time, all centered in the joint. Most of the pain was above the knee. Actually, all of the pain was above the knee. And as Prey tried to get to his feet, he realized why. His thigh moved freely, but it dragged the limp mass of his calf and foot with it. With a sinking heart, he tried again to move his foot. To wiggle his toes or bend his knee. Nothing. He groped at his mangled limb in the dark, unable to feel the pressure of his own fingers. The whole thing below the knee was unnaturally twisted and wet with blood. The invading centipede had nearly broken it off in its attack. His foot remained barely attached by only a few ligaments. Everything below the knee was dead, or at least as good as dead now.  
“Shit.” The human word wobbled out of Prey’s trembling lips. Some part of him knew his leg was gone. Some part of his brain could register that. But the rest of him remained half-ignorant to the fact, unwilling to process it. It took several long minutes of staring into the darkness, limp as a corpse, to bring himself back into full acknowledgement of reality. When he did, he knew that he’d just narrowly avoided a mental break.  
His leg was gone. If he didn’t die from it, he would live the rest of his life unable to walk on two legs. The psychic pain of it was only limited by the fact that he hadn’t been doing much walking lately anyways. His leg was gone, yes. But its utility hadn’t been all that high since he became an egg sack. He could still crawl around the den, and with Red’s help he could even go outside still perhaps… But Red wasn’t here. Prey had not yet even considered that he might never return. A missing leg and a missing mate.  
And the children! The children slept at his side and on his lap. All of them were so quiet he had to check their breathing, just in case. They were starving to death, and all their mother could do was watch. Just hours ago he had fought to protect them. He had vowed to keep them safe. And yet, now that sober reality had set back in, he would be forced to watch them perish. He could not hunt for them now. All the love in his heart could not feed them. It was easy for his determination to wane and give way to familiar thoughts. Had he been brought to this place just to suffer? Was death the only option now? These were months old struggles. They had only been suppressed, never conquered. Most human beings would have succumbed already. Prey’s survival was well beyond miraculous by now. But perhaps even his unnatural tenacity had its limits?  
Yet, perhaps one last miracle could be performed. As Prey's pain-dizzied mind faded in and out of consciousness, he thought of the children… their hungry bodies aching for nourishment. He thought of his twisted leg, a dead hunk of meat. And he thought of how to turn his misfortune into hope. The idea was deeply upsetting, of course. But he was in no state to fret about such things. As soon as the idea occurred to him, he accepted it. He had no choice. He would do anything for them.  
And so, with trembling hands he woke Fawn from his sleep. The baby chirped weakly, not waiting a moment to begin begging for food. This time though, Prey did not have to leave those cries unanswered. He set the hybrid child down by his leg, and dipped his fingers in the sticky blood.  
“Here, eat.” He said, offering the fingers to Fawn. He did not need further invitation to latch on the fingers, scraping them with his teeth and sucking them clean. He cried for more, and so Prey offered him another smear of blood. This they repeated several times as Prey prepared himself for what was to follow. When he had stalled enough, he moved Fawn closer to his bloody flesh, urging him to understand. It took a moment, the confused child waited for more sweet blood to be hand-delivered, but he eventually grew impatient and his antennae found the source. He began to lick the blood directly from Prey’s leg. Prey felt sick. It took all his will to not pull away. But he was also relieved. His baby was being fed. He roused the others as well, and repeated the same with them. They needed less invitation than the youngest, and soon all were lapping at his macabre teat. The feeling of it was awful. Being fed upon by several tiny mouths, all ravenously sucking blood from the skin, scouring every inch of his broken leg. He could just barely feel the scrape of their tiny teeth, a tingle on his deadened nerves. Despite the immense unpleasantness, he was able to grit his teeth and bear it by keeping fixed in his mind that he was giving the little ones much needed nourishment.  
Nothing could have prepared him for what came next however. The boldest, or perhaps hungriest, took the first bite. They were all hesitant to do so. Food and mother were distinctly separate objects in their minds, though their hunger did blur such distinctions significantly. But once one had made the jump from liquid to solid devouring, the rest soon followed, the scent of fresh spilled blood driving them to fill their bellies. Prey had hoped his mangled leg would be dead enough to significantly limit his pain. It was probably better than if his healthy leg was being bitten into, but the pain was not at all slight. He felt them tear through the outer flesh and could not keep from howling in pain, something animal in him escaping. The young suddenly ceased their biting, alarmed by their mother’s cry. He had to bite his tongue, to coo and encourage them to continue. All the while sweat rolled in hot rivers down his face. His voice shook, his three good limbs trembled terribly, but he was able to coax them into feeding again. It took everything he had to remain quiet.  
The pain was electrifying at first, every bite was a new hellish sting coursing up his spine. But after a while, the bites began to fade into each other, until he could not tell when or where he was being eaten, but simply feel the constant deformation of his leg. And when things had really progressed, his mind began to go. He lost track of time and of space too. He could not see, could not hear, could not think. He was floating in a fog of pain, like falling asleep during torture. By the time the young had reached bone, he was completely incoherent, drooling and crying and staring into the empty black of the den. And just like before, in his dreams and in his darkest moments, he was transported into the deep recesses of his own brain. 

“Myrio,” A voice called out. A familiar voice, called a familiar name. Whose name was it?  
“Myrio? Myrio? Myrio? Are you there?” He remembered that it was his name.  
“I… I’m here. I’m Myrio! Right?” He called back into the hazy white that surrounded him.  
“Yes. You are. But you are also Prey, aren’t you?” The voice responded, but this time the speaker emerged. His mother stood looking over him. She wore a clean blue dress and a warm smile on her face.  
“Mom?” Myrio voice could barely get the word out, it was so choked with tears, “Mom! I missed you! I… I love you! I love you, Mom. I never thought I’d see you again.”  
“I love you too, Myri. I always will, even when we are apart.”  
“Mom... This… I don’t understand. How are you here? Why are you…”  
“I’m here because you need me, Myrio. You’ve been through so much and you’ve been such a good boy. A perfect son. I’m very proud of you. And I want you to know that.”  
“Does that mean… am I dead?”  
“No, not yet. Is that what you want?”  
“Yes! If I get to be with you! Yes! It’s been so long! It’s been so scary and hard and I’ve been so alone and… and it hurts! It hurts, Mom!” Just as he spit out those words he began to cry. To bawl. To sob. His whole body shook with the force of his tears as he reached out towards his mother. She took his hand but he did not feel it.  
“But you have children now, don’t you? You’ve become a mother yourself, honey.”  
“Children? They aren’t- they aren’t…” The words were slow to come, interrupted by sobbing fits every few words, “They’re just… bugs! Just bugs!”  
“Is that what you really think? You’re doing all this for just bugs?”  
“Mom I want to… to be with you! I w-want to see you again!”  
“Oh honey. You will. But they need you. Red needs you.”  
Myrio could not respond. He just wept.  
“I’m so proud of you. You’ve been through so much, sacrificed everything for this. For your babies. You’re going to miss me and it's going to be hard, just like it has been. But it will get better. You’re going to be such a wonderful mother, I know it. Think of them. Snow and Melon and Hunter and Storm and Sunny and Fawn. Think of how perfect they are, how much you love them. Let that keep you going. And when you come home, bring them too. We can all have dinner together. I’d like to meet my grandchildren.”  
Myrio sniffled, “You promise I’ll see you again?”  
“Oh Myri, come here.” She embraced him, and though in that moment he felt nothing, for the rest of his life he would remember her warmth.  
“I’m gonna miss you Mom. I’m gonna miss everyone. I’m not ready…”  
“You are more than ready. It’s almost time to wake up now. The little ones are waiting. I love you so much, Myrio. I love you.” 

When he woke, Prey was surrounded by the young, all sleeping soundly against the warmth of his body, stomachs filled with a hefty meal. They were fed. He breathed a sigh of relief. How long had he been out? Everything felt a little unreal, like a dream. He clenched dirt in his hands just to feel the texture of it. To ground himself.  
It was over. Probably the hardest thing he’d ever do and it was done. His mother’s face lingered in his mind and somehow he felt a sense of pride. He’d only ever felt quite like this one other time, back just after he’d given birth. There was no rain this time, and yet it was as if a storm had passed.  
He finally sat up to survey the damage. The babies had cleanly separated the bones at the joint. All that remained of his left leg was a thigh. The bloodied end ached, but it wasn’t that bad. He’d have to clean it up, and he needed to eat to regain lost blood, but he would survive. Deep down in his gut he knew he would. Across the den, a large mass shifted.  
“Prey? Awake?”  
Perhaps it was imagined, but Red’s clicks echoed with genuine concern.  
“Red! Yes! I’m awake! You’re back!” His body impulsively moved towards Red, but his motor skills could not yet accommodate a missing limb and threw him off balance, and he fell on his face. But he scrambled up again, half dragging and half crawling his way to Red. The centipede coiled around him, his legs and antennae brushing over every inch of his fragile body.  
“Your leg? You fed…?”  
“Yes. The young. Yes, I fed them.”  
“I was gone… so long. I… was late.” First it was concern, now was this...guilt he was hearing from Red?  
“It doesn’t matter. I did it. The young are fed. I am happy.”  
There was a silence as the inner workings of a centipede mind tried and only half-succeeded to understand a creature so foreign to itself.  
“Happy?”  
“Yes. Very Happy. I missed you, Red.” Prey grabbed the centipede’s head and pulled it into his chest so he could hug it. He pressed his face into the familiar carapace and yearned to stay like this forever.  
“You…” Red took a long time to spit it out, as if trying out a new concept in words, “You are good, Prey. You are good.”  
Praise smiled, hugging tighter.  
“You are good too, Red. I love you.”  
He used the human word ‘love’, lacking any equivalent in the centipedes’ language. And yet, despite this, Red seemed to understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the penultimate installment of Broomother! (Part 1, at least. I have some ideas for a second part maybe in the future.) I hope everyone is enjoying Preys journey. Please check out my twitter @BoyMotherWrites  
> I would love to hear your thoughts on Broodmother, and get ideas for more Boymother stories! Thanks <3


	13. Loved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Final Chapter (Editing Pending)

Together they soared across the desert. The wind ripped past his ears and thrashed his hair. Prey never grew tired of the vast openness and powerful sunlight on their rides. He could still remember a time when he was deprived of the surface world and all its pleasures, confined to the dark for so long. That was years ago now. Though he never wanted to go back, he did not regret that time of his life. It was a series of the hardest things he’d ever done, but he considered it now like a sort of pupation. The den had been the cocoon in which he was transformed. Everything now, his body, his life, his family… they would all be unrecognizable to Myrio. He smiled at the thought of himself, stumbling out into the desert, being captured by Red. He had been so terrified, and for good reason, Red was a different creature back then. He also had undergone metamorphosis in the years since then. Prey felt a hovering sadness knowing they were now leaving that site of metamorphosis forever. So many memories, good and bad, were made in that hole in the ground. But after the loss of his birthworld, Prey had learned to find hope in moving on to something new. Besides, he had once been alone, now he brought his whole family with him.  
They were a good distance away from the den now. Prey had been out riding on Red many times, but they were quickly approaching the edge of known territory. The red dirt desert plain was a hard life and food was in short supply. For years they had managed, but now that there were several hungry adult predators to feed, migrating was just a matter of time. Their destination? The mountains. The Eastern mountain range was known to harbor more water, less harsh conditions, and much more prey than the barren lowland. Centipedes did not go there because the uneven ground made hunting difficult, and the burrows could not be made in the stony earth. But aside from Red, their family was not centipedes. Not fully at least. They had no natural place in the world, no tradition to guide them. Their kind was a new kind, who would carve out their place in the world however they liked. Their new life, and new species, would begin in the mountains. On the horizon the mountains loomed larger than Prey had ever seen them. They would arrive at the foothills after a day or two of travel he guessed, if they kept this rate. He never ceased to be amazed at how fast Red could move in the open endless plane. He couldn’t have hoped to keep up, even if he still had the legs to walk. Instead he rode on the smooth back of his mate, laying on his stomach and clinging to a rope harness he’d made out of dried plant fibers. He’d become so used to the method of travel by now that he could relax and close his eyes and enjoy the breeze on his back while Red carried him. He was getting ready to do just that, maybe even take a short nap, when he noticed Red was slowing.  
“Something wrong?” He asked as they came to a stop in the middle of nowhere.  
“Your offspring are at it again.” Red hissed with his usual sourness. He liked to refer to the children as belonging only to their mother, especially when they were misbehaving, but Prey knew he loved them. Though he certainly did not have the same affection or patience as human parents. His was a strange love. The love of a centipede. It was something with which Prey was quite familiar.  
Prey untied himself from his harness and sat up, letting his thighs hang over the side of his mate’s back. Both his legs ended in uneven lumps below the knee. For this reason he could not walk, but with Red’s help he got around just fine. His truncated legs were signs of the sacrifices he’d made for his family in the hardest times. He hoped that in the mountains such sacrifices would not be necessary. But just in case, he still had two arms and he was fully prepared to give them up. Though now, he doubted his limbs could even adequately feed one child. His children, now converging around him all bickering with each other at once, were nearly twice his size. Prey had always been small, even among his own species so long ago, but his children with the DNA of gargantuan arthropods were not limited by human size. Would they one day reach Red’s size? Or even surpass him? The thought of them growing as large as his mate filled him with a strange sort of maternal pride, the same kind he felt when they brought home their kills to show off. Despite their size, they still behaved like children. They were always seeking praise and comfort from their mother (which was given in abundance), approval from their father (which was rarely expressed out loud), and always they were bickering.  
“Mom! Melon is kicking dirt at me again!” Snow complained, her stark white exoskeleton and skin standing out against the darker colors of the environment and her siblings.  
Melon was right on her tail to defend himself, “I was not! I was just running ahead of you!”  
They spoke in a centipede language that was heavily modified by all the words Prey had invented over the years, adding all sorts of color and vitality to the otherwise crudely functional language. “No he was doing it on purpose!”  
“Maybe if you weren’t so slow…”  
“Would you two stop bothering Mom! You’re such babies.” Sunny cut-in. She took a leadership role with the other children, despite being the same age. Whenever a fight broke out, Sunny could be found lecturing the participants, which usually only made things worse.  
“Stay out of this!” Snow growled.  
For a moment Prey thought a tangled wrestling match was about to break out. Maybe it was their centipede heritage or maybe it was being raised in the post-apocalypse, but physical fights were very common in the family. Not just to settle arguments, but to play as well. They would hold sibling tournaments, which were almost always won by Storm (the largest) or Hunter (the most skilled fighter). Prey loved to sit and watch these, to praise the winners and console the losers. Even Red sat by to watch sometimes.  
It was Storm’s stern glare at Snow and Melon that prevented any leg grappling. Sunny was just an annoyance, but it was rare that anyone crossed Storm. With her upper body fully raised up, she was at least a head taller than all the others. She would peer down at them with her thin unyielding eyes, framed by her messy dark red bangs, and usually this was enough to end any bickering. But Melon was a persistent child who didn’t know when to stop.  
“She’s always tattling on me!” He complained, his antenna flicking the air in annoyance.  
Snow looked like she was about to tackle him, but Prey stepped in to handle the situation with all the expertise of a mother.  
“Even if it was an accident, Mel, you should apologize. You two should run on opposite sides of Dad for a little while, okay?” Before either had a chance to protest, he continued, “Why don’t we take a break for a little bit? The first one to find Mama a water-root will be my best friend!”  
“Hey! You said I was your best friend last moon, Mom!” Hunter said.  
Prey giggled, “Well, you better go find a water-root fast, darling!”  
Little else worked better to motivate the kids than a little sibling competition, and in flash they were off dashing in different directions across the desert, all squabbles immediately forgotten. Except not all had left to search. In their dust, little Fawn had stayed behind.  
“You heard, go search too, Fawn.” Red prompted him, likely angling for some private time with his mate. But Prey could never resist spoiling the ‘baby’ of the family. He was significantly smaller than the others, comparable in size to his mother, and with the same tawny brown hair.  
“It’s okay if he wants to stay, he doesn’t have to search.” Prey knew all his babies well. And from the way Fawn’s centipede half coiled slightly and his antenna hug flat against the sides of his head, he knew the boy was upset about something.  
“What’s wrong, baby?” Prey asked as he pushed himself off of Red’s back. Despite his missing legs, he had learned to maneuver himself around pretty well when he needed to. Red’s legs still tapped the ground anxiously when he left his back though. Ever since the first leg was injured, he’d become increasingly protective of his mate. Prey wasn’t going anywhere though, he just leaned back against Red and opened his arms to Fawn, who stumbled into the embrace. All of the young had a great fondness for their mother’s softness and warmth, even many of them were starting to be embarrassed by it as they grew into adolescence. But Fawn had not yet developed any such reluctance. When he was younger, he would spend all day clinging to Mom while the others hunted. Red had tried to get him to learn how to kill, but he’d never taken to it. As soon as his cheek was pressed against his mother’s soft breast, he began to sniffle.  
“Oh dear, I think I know what this is about.” Prey said, stroking his hair and back.  
“Mama, I don’t wanna leave the den!”  
“I know, baby. I know. But we talked about this remember?”  
“I miss it! I miss my room and I don’t like all this running! I don’t wanna go somewhere new! I wanna stay at homeeee!” He was having a proper cry now, smearing Prey’s chest with his snot and tears. Red’s antennae twitched rapidly. Crying had always been a foreign thing to him that he was not very comfortable with.  
“Fawn, I know. But our new home is going to be even better. There will be more food and better weather-”  
“I don’t want a new home! I want to go back to our REAL home!” He wailed.  
“Shhhhhhh,” Prey gently shushed him as he rubbed his back nice and slow, pulling him tighter against his chest. It was a trick that calmed him as a baby and it still worked wonders now. He was a fragile little thing. Much more a creature of his mother than of his father. It helped to have tricks to calm him down.  
“I know it’s hard. But I know you’re going to like it so much. And it will be just like our old den. All your siblings will be there still-”  
“I don’t want Mel there.” He grunted.  
“Oh don’t say that. Mel loves you. He just shows it in… special ways. But Mama will also be there. And maybe, if you’re very good, Mama will make you a new doll when we arrive.”  
Fawn’s antennae sprung straight up in the air at the sound of that.  
“Yes please!”  
“I knew you’d like that. There will be lots more doll making materials where we’re going.”  
“I want lots of dolls, Mama.”  
“Well, be good and I’ll make you some, okay?”  
“Okay Mama.”  
“And what do you say?”  
“Thank you, Mama”  
“Looks like Sunny is coming back first.” Red said. Sure enough she was already bolting back with armfuls of water-root.  
“Oh good. I really need a drink. Red, darling, do you think we can stop her for the night? The kids could probably use a rest?”  
Red, though eager to get to their destination and start digging a new den, submitted to his mate’s wishes, and the family set-up for sleep right there under the fading blue sky in the middle of the vast red desert. Centipedes had no appreciation for the stars, but Prey loved them. In the new world, when the sun set, the sky filled with the most incredible imprint of the cosmos. A billion glittering pieces creating awe-inspiring swirls and swells against the deep black of the void. Tonight was particularly beautiful, without a cloud in the sky to obscure the view and with a full moon as the centerpiece. His love for the stars was something Prey had passed on to his children. As Red lay asleep, they stayed up to make out a picture in the sky, excitedly telling mom about all the tasty beetles and centipedes made of stars. Melon even claimed to see a centihuman with human legs and a centipede head, which everyone got a laugh out of.  
Prey’s moments of transcendence had become less frequent since his initial days in this new world. He was leading a happy life now, occupied with the everyday tasks of motherhood. But at moments like these, surrounded by his family, Fawn clinging to his arm and his mate curved protectively around him, he thought of things that had laid dormant in his head for a long time. He remembered his first time meeting Red, and the cycle of terror and dread and the strange private joy of discovering another consciousness. He remembered the birth of his children and their infant faces as if it were yesterday. He looked into the stars and he saw his strange life, full of misfortunes and blessings. In that moment he could not help but connect, just for a fleeting moment, with the grand oneness of all things and his role in it. How lucky he was to play this role on the stage of the cosmos.  
Fawn was stirred from sleep by the feeling of his mother’s tears on his arm.  
“Mama? Mama, are you okay?” he asked.  
“Yes darling. I’m very okay and I’m very lucky. Go back to sleep now. I love you all so much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed Broodmother! That concludes this section of it at least! I may continue the world and concept, now that the story of Prey and Red has been told. I loved writing this and I loved all the comments and appreciation from y'all! Thank you so much! 
> 
> I would LOVE to hear your comments on the story and your ideas for my next project, so please leave a comment! Either here on Ao3 or over at my twitter!  
> ( https://twitter.com/BoyMotherWrites ) 
> 
> Once again, thank you all for reading! <3


	14. Illustration (no.1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an AMAZING illustration from the story by @terevinh on twitter! Go check them out, their stuff is real good!

Thank you Terevin for this AMAZING art!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prey Defending his Babies


End file.
